 Hey, and welcome to the Vergecast for the week of... what is the week? January 30th. January 30th, 2012. I'm Josh Dupolsky. I'm Neelay Patel. And we have with us a very special guest. You can do this, come on. He's somebody who works with us. I don't know exactly. He ends with a Miller. Paul Miller, everyone. I have to say. Just kidding. It's Ross Miller. Ross, say hello. Hello. I'm very excited. Paul's out, and frankly, you know what? He's out for good. I'm glad. Do you see- I prefer this Miller. Chris's full quote in the post. By the way, nine out of ten people prefer Ross Miller. We've discovered our Millers are interchangeable. This is very true. Kind of awesome. What does that mean? It just put Chris's full quote on the post, on our front page. Oh, that's good. That's really good. Actually, true story. I got Paul Miller's seamless web order delivered to my apartment the other day. What was it? Oh, it was Senior Pollo. He actually thought I was at the- What was the exact order, though? I don't know. I didn't eat it. Maybe you don't know it was in there? I was checking on it. It's making me hungry. He's Senior Pollo. Whatever you're talking about. He is named Mr. Chicken, for God's sake. Can we turn Neelay down a little bit? I would love to be turned down. He sounds a little loud in my headphones. That's disgusting. You're a married man, almost. Six months, dude. He's very, very loud in these headphones. Five months. Can you turn him down? Five months. Can you mute Neelay Patel in my headphones? Headphone one, kill Patel. I think it happened. This is the Vergecast, by the way, in case you're wondering what you're watching. This is the Vergecast where we discuss the weekend, consumer electronics, technology, culture, consumer culture, technology culture. I think it's just culture. Consumer, now it's culture. We're discussing the week in technology as it relates to culture and culture as it relates to technology. That's deep, man. You damn right it is. And relations is a big thing. Culture and technology. And it's been a very interesting week. It's been a week of not gadget news. You know what? We've been talking- Which is just fine, as far as I'm concerned. I saw enough gadgets at CES for the next six months. I saw enough- Chinese Android tablets at CES. I'm all set. I bought three of them. No, you know, it's like we spent... We've been having this bigger conversation about what technology news is. We launched this site and like build it. What is it? Well, it's not things that turn on anymore. It's like not things with LEDs. I mean, they do... Be curious. Be curious. Yeah, but like Facebook doesn't have an LED. You know Facebook needs an LED. No, actually. I have to say. One thing that was missing from their IPO filing was any indication they were going to give us an LED notification light, a Facebook light. Not a bad idea. Not a bad idea, actually. A little accessory. It's just like a blue light that goes off. Blue light special. Facebook notification. I'm sure there's a Kickstarter on right now. Someone's doing this on Kickstarter right now. Kickstarter's happening. Kickstarter. You need a column that's just like random ideas you've had called Kickstarter. That's actually a good idea. Just random stuff I thought of. So speaking of which, the biggest news of the week was the Facebook IPO. Yeah, we should just jump right into it. Go for it. Yeah, so Facebook did their IPO filing. So there's some business news this week. Yeah, I mean here's the thing. At The Verge we're exploring, we're expanding, we want to cover everything that seems relevant and that every day is like we're finding something new that's relevant. I think we've done a lot more web coverage, a lot more social coverage and stuff like web 2.0. Is it still 2.0? It seems like it would have gotten an update at this point. I will say the web 2.0 stuff, I would say that is over with the Facebook IPO filing. It's not just web. Well, it's the web and it's that. World 1.1. This whole idea that, yeah, Facebook is I think in many ways like the paradigmatic web 2.0 company. Check it out. Your fancy word. I'm a fancy words guy. Mr. College. College. You know, I should have dropped out and started Facebook. I'm like your brother who didn't go to college, blue collar worker. Listen to Mr. College over here. My blue collar worker brother who was a like charted European music producer and is now the editor in chief of The Verge. We. Really, man. We. We. We. But that is true. That is true. But anyhow, but yeah. In many ways they are, but it's over. That whole idea that there's this wave of invention that's new. It's well, that's not over it, but it's just that we've entered a new era. I mean, you're I know what you're saying, but you're not saying like it's dead. You're saying it's very much alive, but it's become it's gone from it's gone from it. We were talking about this that it's gone from, you know, this kind of like nerd culture and, you know, a hacker culture and the I think this goes for everything that's happening in technology right now. It's going from but we've talked about this a bunch, but you're saying it's kind of graduated. Yeah. I said the internet graduates and it is this feeling of, you know, here's this thing started by this kid in a dorm room. He's still very young. And this is now a real. This is a real company. Yeah. He's 25. Like that's nuts. They were waiting until he turned 25. And this is a real it's a real company to real industry. You know what they do is going to be relatively important over the next 10 years. So 10. I mean, I don't know. We want from it. I think they're a generational company. I think they're going to be around, you know, we always talk that Google is the internet. Facebook is the internet. I don't want Facebook to be the internet. I really don't. And I'll fight that tooth and nail because it would make it terrible. I'm sorry. I was there. I was on Facebook today trying to just trying to change something. I don't know what it was. One minor setting. It's like a sea of the maze of death. Amaze. Okay. But what's going to happen to your Farmville if you if you don't play Farmville, so I don't worry about it. So actually play a video game. I get my I get a console out. These are some interesting things. I'm not casual about it. Just the mechanics of what happened are ultimately quite boring. It's like Facebook handed in a sheet of paper. And they said, we want to raise five billion dollars. We think our valuation is going to be this. And they handed in another stack of paper, which is what they're going to use to sell their company to investors. Like on the road. What was interesting to me was like, you know, was almost like a qualitative evaluation of like what their strengths and weaknesses are. That's what you tell investors, right? Right. It was very much like a Ross Miller email. And a lot of bullet points. Super long. Yeah, really broke down like every possible scenario. It is actually like in a lot of ways. I mean, I feel like you would you could have done a great filing for them. I mean, my emails are lawyer ism. When we do IPA, Ross. Yeah, you're the guy. Every little nook and cranny. I mean, this is an inside joke. But Ross has this has this. It's like a blessing and a curse that he's able to. It's mostly like when you're talking about a topic like should we change the color of the review tag or what? It's just something really minor. And he said you'd even it's like four pages long with bullet points of like the pros and cons of why you might want to not change it. But but it was like, like, we our business could be hurt if like these 500 things happen. It's like they lay out every possible scenario. I think that's what you have to do when you're trying to raise the power grid in the US goes down our business could be harmed. Right. So I think that that's the stuff that was interesting to us like the normal the business part of the news. It's like they want $5 billion. They want a $95 billion valuation. But who cares? Right? Well, some people care, but shareholders care. Yeah, but I'm not going to be sad. We're not allowed to invest. I think the problem with having your people who are not allowed to invest in tech stocks talking about tech stocks is a fundamental edge. Don't care. I don't mind it to other sites. Yeah. No problem over there. I'm out of here, man. See you. By the way, I've been a venture capitalist. What? What? Patel ventures. Huh? You're a PD. Just on top of my head, that's just, I'm just. You're just riffing, man. Yeah, yeah. PV. No, it's coming. PV. No, so the stuff that's interesting is that they say things like Mark Zuckerberg owns 28% of Facebook. You know, they list, you know, because we have a CEO who owns so much Facebook and makes all the decisions, you know, he could make the wrong decisions. That's something that they're worried about. But I think what's actually more interesting than Zuckerberg is how much importance they put on their COO, Sheryl Sandberg, who actually makes more money than Mark Zuckerberg. She's a woman also. She's a lady. Yeah, are these figures accurate? 1.5 million versus 30 million last year? Is that right? Yeah. Wow. She makes 30 million? She made 30 million last year. Well, but how much, what is her percentage of ownership? It's not as high as Zuckerberg. So Zuckerberg's salary is going down to $1, but she's staying very high. You know, I think that sort of stuff about this IPO is interesting. Like that's the news. It's interesting. This company, nobody really knows how it's been run. It is now, I keep saying it's now among, you know, it's in the upper echelon of American business. I was most surprised to discover that, and maybe this was common knowledge, I don't follow their board that closely, but Reed Hastings is on the board. Yeah. Which I didn't know. Yeah. This guy's rich. Reed Hastings is so rich. Right. Oh, and Facebook made like a billion dollars last year in profit. Yeah, it's nice. And it was funny because they listed off their profit and it was just 1 billion straight, like flat. Like they hit the number, like they're at the gas pump. They're like, that's enough. We're done. But yeah, it'll be exciting to see this thing play out, but it is overall like rather boring. I mean, it's interesting for us in a lot of ways on a lot of levels, but it's also basically boring at its core. I thought there was business. Yeah. Well, the business, that part is like, there's still so much to go for the business story to be interesting. Yeah. Like once they actually start talking shit. I need a little more social network in this mix. You need more like deep, like Trent Reznor tone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can we get a Trent Reznor tone? I don't think they can produce. There's a dead silence in the control room. They can't produce, they can't just like, there's no like, what do you think there's a button in the control room where they just have Trent Reznor tone? I don't know what goes on in that. They do have an Andy Samberg soundboard. I like that we now have a control room and you immediately assume that because there's a control room, there's like a sound effects board. Look, let me quote Mark Zuckerberg. You want me to quote this? You play the sound of a toilet flushing and then like a change, like the change sound. You guys have that? What's going on in there? We're spending all this money. How about like a car horn and then some like gunshots? I will say that I do have a cough button now so I can just click it. Yeah we can't hear you. I mean I can hear you but uh. Endless amounts of entertainment. Anyhow but. Sorry. Cough. Cough. Cough. Cough. Cough. Cough. Can I say more stuff about Facebook? Yeah please do. I totally lost my track. Okay so now that. Oh two things. I remember what they were. Okay. The two things about that were really interesting. One is the letters Zuckerberg wrote. It was all about the hacker ethos of Facebook and how they build it. And the second one was that 12 percent of their revenue comes from Zynga. Like crazy Zynga games. Sorry, I'm shooting camera one here. Can I re. I've just cut off Josh. Sorry. I was waiting for that to happen. Like these buttons are very dangerous. Go ahead. What were you saying? Sorry please continue. 12 percent of Facebook's revenue comes from Zynga. And that's not just the games. It's also the ads. Well they buy. So Zynga buys some ads but their total revenue comes from. Right. And I would imagine the majority of that 12 percent. Something's happening between Josh and our producer right now that I don't understand. So it'd be great. Creighton is like in this crazy alluring. What's going on? You tell me. I think everything is fine. I'm interrupting the podcast. Yeah please stop doing that. Can you go. I told you you could talk. Can you go get me that toilet flushing sound please. Yeah can you work on that on the car horn toilet flushing. 12 percent. You know what I'm saying Zynga. Zynga. And the letter that Zuckerberg wrote which you actually covered. Yeah. I think those are the two most interesting things. So we were all scrambling like looking through this document. There's a letter in the middle of it that's Mark Zuckerberg's like impassioned description of what he wants to do. He my favorite part of it is that he refers to relationships human relationship as a fundamental unit of society. Which is like what is a what a unit of what. Society. A society unit. A society unit. Like like this is definitely going to be a new Zynga game right. Yes. Society. Society unit. Yeah. Society unit hero. No I've been I've been grinding away at society. I mean to him it's like these people like little nodes like well nodeville. It's like these little talibans. Nodeville. Nodeville. I'm going to do that so Zynga can copy it tomorrow. I just think it's funny. I honestly like I honestly think that that you know Facebook stated mission is just total BS. I mean it's like what a social mission. I mean I think there's some real problems and we've talked about this before but you know part of their mission statement is like we think like authentic authentic identities are important so that you can act the way you do in real life on the Internet. It's like well the Internet wouldn't exist if people acted the way they do in real life. Like that's what's so great about the Internet. Right. And I don't want the Internet to be a place where I am who I am all the time on the Internet. Like I want to have parts of my existence that are just for the bedroom or other areas like the floor of the bedroom or against the wall in the bedroom. The point is I want to be able to do what I want to do when I want to do it with whom I want to do it and not have it be exposed to the world. I'm just gonna press the like button on that one. Because frankly it's illegal. And I could be arrested. You know it's like it's like I don't want I don't agree with Facebook's philosophy of like authentic identity. And there's a bunch of other stuff I don't agree with. But like you know what advertise to me all you want but like don't force me to like into some weird social construct that you think is is like the way it should be because I don't think Mark Zuckerberg knows shit about human interaction or reality. I've been saying this for like I don't want to I don't want my like interact with people online to be dictated by a guy like Mark Zuckerberg who I'm sure by the way is fine and we'd love to do an interview with you Mark whenever you want. Well you know what's funny is that he is the king of Facebook. You know Facebook is like an alternate society that we live in. I want to pose a challenge to Zuckerberg. You're happy to sit on stage with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. Why don't you man up and do a real interview with me. I don't know what that means. I mean interviews are great. And also like they give him like the worst like rake him over the stop moving that thing over there. I can't. They rake him over the cold so I don't know what worse I could do. Yeah bring it Zuckerberg. Don't you want to see me and Zuckerberg talking. I can see you just like slowly increasing the temperature of the room just to get him to the same kind of temperature man. Just give him a look. That look right there. That's it. All right. How do you feel right now. A little more intensity. Yeah. I'm going to borrow that bro. There you go. Borrow that frow. Is that what you just said. You've only had one beer. It was a full anyhow. Anyhow what we're doing a long I know we were talking about something. Borrow that frow. Borrow that frow.com. Is it available. Not anymore. Borrow that frow. Also using different spellings could have totally different connotations. Anyhow so I was just complaining about Facebook. Back to you Patel. No and I think the other thing is that the we were talking about this hacker ethos. The hacker way. The hacker way and they put it in the filing. They said that we build our company. We're using it the hacker way. We think this is how you run a company now. And I think that's really interesting. I mean. Sandals for everyone. To tell your investors like we have a hundred billion dollar company. We'd like five billion dollars of your money. By the way we are not. We're going to do it this way. Like here's how we run a company now. Here's the way that we're building value. And it's by being hackers. However that works in a big company. A huge engineering company. Because you know I don't think they're all hackers. I don't think they're all hacking away. I think there's probably some managers over there. I think they have some management. Yeah I know that like they have an open office. But they probably have some private offices too. So I just think it's that. That's what this is to me. It's not. It's not about the money. It's not about the business. It's about this type of company now being one of the biggest and hottest companies in America. Right. It's in the conversation with Apple, Microsoft, Google, GM, Exxon. Somebody said something in our comments I thought was pretty funny. They were like didn't pets.com IPO as well. And you know it is true. I mean I think it was pets.com. There are a bunch of those like the initial like the bubble. The bursted bubble. That doesn't sound right to me. The bubble that burst. The bubble that burst anyhow. But like there were like Facebooks of their era. I mean there were not to this you know. No. You know the thing is that pets.com was like never profitable. It was never successful ever. Right. Facebook has a billion dollars of profit. I mean the one thing that. That's 845 million active users. The one thing that the internet clearly learned is you wait till you actually have a real company before you file for an IPO. I mean they had a sock puppet. No but you know I'm saying. I do think. But it's like it will be interesting to see where Facebook goes from here. I mean if their goal is to become the internet that's going to be an interesting one to watch because that will not be an internet that I want to participate in. I think a lot of other people will feel that way. What was that piece from a couple years ago that Zuckerberg was like I want to be the new Google. Like I want people to find their stories from Facebook. Well I think that's already happening. I think that's what Twitter wants too. It is very much happening. I mean the question on the internet is has always been look at all this stuff. How do I do anything here. You know and it's the question for you know a computer too. It's like how do I get the apps that I want. And you see like now people are discovering that people they want choice but they only want a limited amount of choice. Yeah right. And Facebook provides you with a limited amount of choice. I will say well do they though. They don't provide you with that limited amount of choice. I mean it's a limited amount of choice because all you see on Facebook is what you've chosen to see. It's what your friends like. Whoa. It is interesting though that we have you know discovery is still not really there's really not a lot of ways to get to things on the internet. You've got a few main ways to do it. We haven't built elaborate systems of truly intuitive discovery. Well you know what I think is really interesting about is that the that's kind of where the money is right. Discovery it's yeah it's it's being the middleman. I think the Discovery Channel would be more popular. That's a terrible joke. Well extremely extremely popular. Forgive me for that. Shark Week dude it's not going anywhere. Shark Week is a big deal. But no it's the middlemen are popular right. It's you know our our company is still trying to figure out how do we make primary source content like really valuable all the time. But it's Google you know and part of it is well we got to be on Google. Right. I mean the algorithms. It's creation versus creation and curation right now is just a better return on investment. But you still need the creation. Right. That's a good point. Well creation costs money and curation is like. It costs a different kind of money. Yeah but it's like engineering. Monopoly money. It's more it's more upfront money. How do we make the curation effective and then you just kind of let that go and get the machine. Right. You build a machine. Yes. Right. That's terrifying conversation. I don't really know what you're talking about at this point. But what I will say is there does seem to be though a kind of a not a lot. I mean it's weird because Facebook is not that good of a discovery tool. I mean it's good because if you discover stuff through your friends and then it's like a very narrow field of discovery. I mean in my opinion Twitter presents a more open field of discovery but it still requires you to like but Twitter doesn't like see Facebook. I disagree with you. Well Facebook to me requires social connections like it doesn't because you can subscribe to people. But how well is that doing. Yeah it's not really that's not the main but like becoming friends with people is like what people do on Facebook right. And they see stuff in their feed from those people. I think that you know it's actually asking you to form like a bond with a person whereas Twitter is just asking you to like see that they are saying something. So like it's a much more passive experience which I think makes discovery easier because I can follow somebody that I don't necessarily want to be friends with but I may be hesitant to be friends with somebody. You know what I'm saying. So I mean they're two very different services. They're not even in the same world really when you think about it. But I think Facebook is the more ultimately the more powerful of the two. When are we going to see Twitter games Zynga on Twitter. I mean if I'm Twitter and I'm looking at 12 percent of my Facebook revenue comes from Zynga. The next company I'm calling is Zynga. What would you do what would they do on Twitter. Who knows. Like I'm not I'm not even sure that's like that's what they want to do because was it Jack Dorsey at all things media this week was like you know Twitter is a broadcast medium it's the next radio. Yeah. And then weird and then Neil Young said piracy is the new radio. There's so many new radios. You know what else is good. Just the radio. Yeah. When they said Neil Young I think I could have sworn it could be NG Moco's Neil Young. It's not going to be age and rock. Oh really you didn't think it was Neil Young. I swear to God like it's probably not. I didn't even think about it. I didn't even think of it the other way which is funny. It's like an age thing. That's terrible. You want to talk about other company it's going through big changes. Are we done with Facebook. I think so. Yeah. You can friend us on Facebook by the way we're all on. Congratulations Mark. You got richer. Zuck. Zucked up. What the Zuck. Zucked up. Wow. That's pretty Zucked up. Let's talk about Sony. What do you want from me. Let's do talk about Sony. Sony is Zucked up. Ross talk to us about Sony. You love video games. I love video games. They're the best ever video games. You're a big fan of video games. Is that true? I play every now and then. I hear you go down to your local arcade and put some quarters in slots. You know little quarters here and there. The problem is he's not putting them in the Sony machines. That would be awesome. You can see my eyes just light up. Why don't they do that. Why don't they have you know when are when are arcades going to come back in the fashion. They should. They aren't. They need to have an experience that you can't get at home. Motion controlled gaming. In New York that is true. You cannot get that at home here. You can't do that. You have to be like I want to turn but I. Let's do it. You can get a work. I want to turn my wall back on the rails. Yes. So the big deal we heard this rumor about a month ago I think give or take just before CS. Yes. But cause a rise basically taking over as the head of Sony. CEO CEO and stringer is going to be the chairman which is you know whatever. And Eric Schmidt is the chairman. Thorsten Balsillie Lazaridis. Well you know he's saying all this crazy. What was his quote. He gave a quote to Wall Street Journal. He's like I thought turning around PlayStation be my hardest ever challenge but oh damn. Or no it was it was like holy and then like. He said holy shit. We swear on the podcast now. We do. We do. You've been swearing on the podcast every week. Every once in a while I'll drop an S bomb or something. Or you know a Z bomb here. That's right. Mother Zucker. No you're fired. Goodbye. Anyhow. Let me read this exactly. So let's talk about Sony can we. Here we go. Well there so you know he has obviously he has his plan. His plan is is very dry in terms of plans like we've got to be better at digital imaging. We have to play to our strengths in gaming to turn around the TV business. And we have to create new areas of innovation. They just have to make find a way to make money. If they're not making it and make more if they are. Yeah pretty much. But the thing is like he recognizes like you know cameras and gaming are where we're doing the best. I mean I've heard how bad they've been beat by Microsoft in like the whole. Yeah I mean I don't see. Look you asked about Thorson Hines. It's like the PS3 is great and I have one. I use it all the time but I use it to play Blu-ray. I was just gonna say I actually have not had mine hooked up and I'm going to hook it up so I can watch because I just got the new Star Trek next generation Blu-ray in the mail which I'm pretty excited about. And I was like well I guess I'm gonna have to look at my PlayStation 3 now. But I was also thinking I might just get a cheap Blu-ray player because. Uncharted is like great. I mean Uncharted is amazing. Their franchises are good. One of the best games ever. Well you know they but there's like they're few and far between. Yeah I mean. But I mean they're getting the same like flagship third party titles like these AAA titles. But you know what Microsoft like on the home entertainment piece just destroyed them. Like oh yeah. It's kind of like a real F you to the whole Blu-ray HD DVD battle. You know it's like how's that going with the Blu-ray stuff. Pretty good. That go we get. Yeah I guess the HD DVD attachment didn't really work out for anyone. For the Xbox. I still have mine. I have mine too. Someday man. It's gonna come back. I mean like it's my only copy of Hot Fuzz. My only copy of Children of Men. Dude I have Blade Runner HD DVD. What am I supposed to do with those. Which cut though. All. I have the box set. I have everything. And then you have to keep it. I know. I also have like a bunch of stuff I bought on an HD DVD like when it was on sale. Like I'm gonna watch this and they're all shrink wrap. They're like a dollar a piece. I should get that out. I should get that out. Well you know I continue to believe that like the Vita for example is like it's a great idea and it's a limited idea. Right. It is 10 people. I think I think I think it's a turning point. But that turning point before the crest it's like this is the best Kingdom Portable you're gonna get and the next generation it's all mobile. It's all phones. It has to be. It does. Yeah. I mean there's there's I mean there's no way that it can be anything but. It just seems to me like if somebody if if Apple for instance not that they would. Built the PlayStation Vita. No if they just decided like we're gonna make an official like controller adapter for the iPhone the Vita would not have it would be like its purpose would be totally obviated. Like it wouldn't. You would never. You wouldn't be like I gotta get one. I'm just saying like if there was a standard that people gathered around it because it is the like what would you rather carry with you your phone and a thing you put on it to play games or your phone and a big game console as well. I mean look I hear you I'm getting a Vita. Don't get me wrong. But like we're special and we're special people. Yeah. Who are you like willing to do that. I'm a venture capitalist. You know. PV PV. You know Patel Venture Capital. His pipeline of cash. Pipeline of cash. The PVZ pipeline. Everyone's gonna be doing it. I was gonna say like you could do ads. God Azure. I'm gonna do ads. I'm gonna do ads. I'm gonna do ads. I'm gonna do ads. I'm gonna do ads. God Azure. With PV you could do it. You could do like an ad for yourself where it's like change your point of view. Patel Venture. The POV. Some atmosphere not floresque music behind you. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like it's like a close up of Neelai like panning across his eyes. You know. And like panning down the side of his face. I'm gonna go sideways. It's a shadow act. It's a bit of a wide shot. It's like shadowy. Not coming across. Sony. CAS. So CAS comes from the PlayStation. Cas ride comes from the PlayStation section which was formerly before him Ken Kutaragi which you know way back if you remember that years and years ago just like completely botched the PlayStation 3 launch. Yeah. The PS3 is now not doing that bad. I mean obviously don't have the same momentum but it has turned around. It has. It has. I use it. I use it to watch videos. I rarely use it to play games. Anyway. That's that's. I used to watch Sony. Anyway. From from like a branding perspective from a managerial perspective he was always the heir apparent. Mm hmm. I am going to miss him because he's not as much fun on stage as Howard Stern. You know you and I. Yeah we've done Sony live vlogs for years now. They're the best. Oh come on. That is live. Yeah. No one claps. He's like oh come on. You could do better than that. He's like a plumper. He's like a plumper Rupert Murdoch. No he's not that evil. He's not. I know he's a little. I could see him being evil but in a very charming way. Like yeah like he looks like he could scare Will Smith on stage and I think he did. No. Will Smith was terrified. The big hug. I think Will Smith is probably just like why am I what am I doing in CES? How did this happen? Yeah. He's like I was I made Independence Day. Why am I on stage? Why are all these plump men in dockers looking at me? But he also made Men in Black. Well right. Because he made Independence Day. He didn't stay there. Well so anyway so Sony just lost a bunch of money. They lost 1.2 billion dollars for the quarter. Siphoned up by Apple. Siphoned up by Apple. I mean they have a long way to go and that their TV division is lost basically. It's a drift. They have to prove a lot in mobile. You know they want it. They keep talking this big game about phones. They bought out Sony Ericsson. They haven't proven it. I don't think the phones like the Xperia Ion that we saw at CES is like it's just another nice Android phone. But here's my question. Like they've owned Sony. Well they own Sony Ericsson now I guess is the way you could put it. For how long? Like at what point do we start seeing the fruits of that labor? Well you know their challenge is to be integrated. You know Sony's biggest challenge has always been. You mean like the PlayStation phone. The what is it called? The Xperia Play. Xperia Play. I forgot the name of it. Sorry I have a kill switch. It's beyond that. We say kill switch enable. It's a kill switch engage. We're saying engage. It's engaged. It's the point to reference them here. Go on. No their challenge has always been well we own a movie studio and a record label. We make phones and TVs and Blu-ray players and the PlayStation. They're like Microsoft. It's like. They make and it's like their challenge is to make that all work together. Right. No matter what operating system. I'm saying like Microsoft and they still aren't there but they've gotten better where the stuff is out. At least they're gluing the same UI. I mean like the phone and the Xbox have an actual like element of interaction now. Sure you can't game between the two which is would be a killer feature. Right. Like a killer killer feature. I mean Sony could get there. They're closer to that. I mean they could get there but but they're whatever this Xperia Play offering has not been. I mean so the thing is and it seems to be they're doing a little more of a step up. So the big thing about Xperia Play was that it had a PlayStation suite which like their Android version of a PlayStation portal and they did nothing with it. And like now the Xperia phones coming out all have that. It's always Sony phones. Maybe that's maybe that's causes like lasting contribution is that he's the PlayStation guy so now PlayStation will be everywhere. It would I mean it would be nice because that was like the good idea. Everybody announced that and the Vita then the Sony NGP at the same time. Right. They put all this money in Vita. It's not doing that well in Japan anymore. Like it had a great launch and then it's just tanked like considerably. Maybe it's because people figured out that they don't really care that much about portable gaming. Not for $30 games. No. Right. Right. I mean not when you've got iPhones and Android device. I mean honestly I was playing Dead Space yesterday. You keep bringing this up. Seriously like one of the only good games on Android. That came out on iPhone first. No I know but I was playing on my Android phone and I have to say like the experience is pretty good. I mean the controls aren't great but once you start to get the hang of them it I was legitimately scared by some of those four legged creatures. Legitimately scared. Yeah. No I was like scared that they were going to pop out from somewhere like a console game. And there's a couple of really good parts to the game like it's psycho trippy where like the room starts caving in. Yeah don't ruin it for me. I'm not ruining it. It's like five minutes. Anyway. Anyway. But all I'm saying is. It's high quality. It's good enough. It's like it is like you know the tablet app experience of certain things like pages isn't as robust on an iPad as it is on a desktop. But guess what. It's good enough. It's the same thing. Like people don't require. They really aren't that picky when you get right down to it. Like you give them like a decent experience with a bunch of other great stuff like they'll be happy. Most people don't need to have like the most awesome portable gaming experience of their life. Right. And that's where and that's where Sony has a problem because they've made the most awesome portable gaming experience that you can have but there just isn't a big base for that at this point. Right. If the iPhone and Android devices didn't exist. Do you play with it in CS for real? The interface is horrible. Yeah. The interface is really bad. Like that stupid bad. Right. Maybe that said the games are good. Like they're really good. They're better than what I've got on my iPhone but they're not good enough that I'm going to spend a premium on them. That's what I'm saying. And carry the thing around. No. But to me it's like it's a living room device. If someone else is watching TV. Yeah. That's insane though. But yeah. Exactly. I have an iPad for that. There's an iPad for that. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's crazy. I mean I just you know I'm not I don't think it's all doom and gloom for Sony but. I think there's a lot of I think Stringer ultimately was a very entertaining CEO and someone that I will miss covering in the industry. I think ultimately he was a failure. I think he just failed to do a good job. He didn't do a good job. And you know all summer long all we talked about in the thing about causes all summer long all we talked about was PlayStation like utterly failing to hold that network together. What's so crazy is that they had the console they Sony is like one of the major like content creators. Yeah. Microsoft had to go has to go ask for content. You know they don't they don't make the content and here's Sony with this huge like opportunity that they just couldn't put together. What I mean I said his challenge is to integrate. Sony is really. Yeah. Good. I think they need to. I don't know. And I think what they what they need to you know Apple isn't precious about content. They don't care if they make money selling music on iTunes. Oh I mean they know about that. They always say we run this thing to break even. They run iTunes the content ninety three billion dollars even. Well even we meant profit. But you know if you look at the chart of where that profit comes from it's the devices. It's not iTunes. They run iTunes because it helps a little bit. Yeah. But it's it's a pittance. You know they're doing better than breaking even. Yeah. Sony runs like a Hollywood films but like this much better. Like it's right. It's not really a big deal you know compared to what they make from the iPhone. Sony runs a Hollywood studio that has to make a lot of money. Yeah. And so they're really proud. They can't do it. They're really precious about the content. They can't do it now that soap has been tabled. Yeah they're totally. Sony won't be able to pay for Pirates of the Caribbean 6. Pirates of the Internet 5. Pirates of the Silicon Valley 2. 3. Skip number 2 then. To happen in our minds and our hearts. It did. No no. I mean like that's the problem. Sony like you want them to go out and sell the content to you want them to use the content to sell their devices. Yes. But they won't do it because they're married to its production. Correct. And that's like that's why that's why it's easier for Microsoft to come sell your stuff for like 80 Microsoft points or whatever it is. I think that is there some room to get rid of Microsoft. Microsoft points are the worst thing that ever happened. Are they not. It's like that's 200 points. How many dollars that a dollar fifty seven. Really. But think of all the people who've learned like you know mental math from it. Like we're really obscure mental mental. Mental. I'm reaching here. I am reaching here. I fully know. It's like that'll be three dollars. You're like well that is four hundred and sixty. Do you take Microsoft points. No I don't even want to try to be God bless deli grocery. Do you take Microsoft points. I said that's a deli in my neighborhood. No but we take Bitcoin cheap sandwiches. When I was broke when I was broke I had some music for this. There should be sad violin music. But when I when I did not have any money after all this. We weren't kidding. They don't have sound effects. OK. They're not equipped to do sound effects. Now I used to go to this place God bless and it's where I would eat pretty much every meal and they had like three dollar sandwiches. And so whenever I was spending money on anything else I would always just figure out how much it was in God bless sandwiches. I was like twenty dollars. That's like six God bless. It's like measuring a marriage in Kardashians like periods of 72 days. When I was a once my roommates and I used to we would we realized that we never bought cereal. But it's happening. I hear my hearing to Mac go get that out. Oh well the story. You're so late. It was going to sound great. Good job guys. The list. But I hear that I appreciate the effort. Super pro. Thank you. But we can you have anything now. No forget it. Just go. Come on. Now I was going to say my room it's not we would never buy cereal. So anything that was cheaper than cereal we would just buy it. That's not this is an appropriate music off. We can hear it. It's good though. I mean it was really nice. That's nice. It really sets the stage. No I've been late but that's fine. Cheaper than cereal. We're going to get a sound effects board for you guys for here. Just click. Yeah exactly. So this is turning into drive time radio. All right. So so so what else do we have to talk about here. There's a bunch of Windows one news. Yes speaking Microsoft Ross memorized because I didn't want to do it and I didn't memorize but I have it right here in my point for that in detail. Bullets excuse me I get through all these. There's actually a huge leak. Yeah. This video is like Joe Belfi or a like two partners talking about the future of the roadmap. Right. So it's like it's basically detailing what Windows Phone eight Coney Apollo is going to be the key points about it support for multi-core processors for screen resolutions. We don't know which ones but clearly they're thinking they're going to get smaller. Scalium three twenty by two eighty one twenty one twenty. Think even smaller. I'm ready to go smaller. But but still six inch screens. Yes. Of course removable micro SD card storage. Thank God finally. I was like whatever. I mean it's like I mean it's like yeah there is a pain. You know I don't need that. Just put more storage in your phones like I don't care. NFC also not really. Well it's further integration with Skype which makes sense because Microsoft now I feel like we're years and years and years and years away from NFC taking on taking any kind of real like in America. I think you're you have a phone. Isn't your Nexus have NFC. Yeah paid for caps. You're good. Why. Because I was given Verizon one right. I don't know the one in my pocket right now is a GSM but you can sign up for Google. Google wasn't available on either one. You had to give to use the hack to get it. It's not available on the GSM one. What was that story as a piece of tape holding a part of a cord. Now create a true life. What is that core going to be on to. But no but Google Wallets not available on any Galaxy Nexus device that you can go by. You have to get to download it after the fact and you have to like do some. I forget you have to go find the APK somewhere. Yeah I have I haven't set up with like a ten dollar Google card but I haven't had. I mean I just there's no pain for those cabs. I just is not getting my phone out and swiping the things on anything to get my card out and swiping it. It's good. Yeah it's but you but you're wrong. You disagree. You are. I've been there. I want to do it. You know you know I was gonna take off. It's gonna be an Apple and a C chip if they ever do that. That's right. It's gonna be it's gonna take somebody doing something that people want to make it that is good. Right. You know. It's gonna take Verizon saying all of our smart friends have NFC. It's also gonna take certain places like it's like the container store, Duane Reade, this is in New York by the way and cabs. Yeah. That's three pretty well not the container store. I mean you're doing reason cabs is like that's most of the money I spend in a day like right there. Yeah I mean you may be getting a lot more pharmaceuticals than those people. Well I do I do but do nothing but take cabs between Duane Reade to buy power. I just think that we're just far like if they did it for trains that would be huge. Trains for Starbucks for Walmart. Yeah for like. Starbucks will be there very soon. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean but they know that they're like the stuff they they're doing with the apps. I mean Starbucks is all about taking your money. It's gonna really you know it's gonna really be bad for Square. Yeah. Unless they do Square. Yeah. Actually it would be good for Square. We took a car there today and the guy used Square. We both were like whoa. The car service from Brooklyn used Square and we were blown away. It was just so crazy to see anybody using it in that especially in that setting because they're like low-fi. Yeah. Really low-fi. Did you tip them extra for the mind blowing event? He charged me 2.75 percent to the privilege of paying with the card. Is that right? He did not get an extra tip. You did. We did tip them. We did tip them cash. But but I. Skim that. Well I actually you know speaking of Square I mean it could just be the software triggered via NFC. Wait wait wait wait. If you had an NFC. Square is a platform versus a dongle. Well it is a platform right? Yeah. No the dongle is irrelevant. Right. So. The new Square app you can just take a picture of the card. You know the reader is irrelevant. It's ridiculous. That doesn't make any sense. But no no I know. But it but actually this could be a big thing for them if if if they people have open you know and if you can get access to the NFC chip. Right. Which is remains to be seen. Well. You can build anything you want. This is like Verizon. Verizon saying stuff like we have to make sure it's secure. Yeah. I mean you should be able to get access. I mean let's look at other countries like I think Japan like all their phones have NFC. A lot of people pay with those. Yeah. It was carrier mandate like you're saying. So Verizon does. I like that. I like that Verizon is. They're not sure if they can get this you know. It's like just use what they're doing in Japan. Just take that and it's pretty secure. They've been. They actually are years now. Right. Yeah. It's there. Yeah. I mean and I think France is doing NFC stuff for the metro. Theirs is weird because it's not straight to the metro. It's you have to tap your metro card to the phone to fill the card back up and then use the card at the station. That's done. That is impossible. That's a horrible idea. Yeah. We're here though. It's NFC. You have to. I mean it's gonna. I just think it's gonna be many many years before it's in wide use. Two years. It's gonna be the next generation of iPhones. Okay. So that's one year until it's done. No. Maybe. So as soon as the iPhone 5 has it. They're not gonna put it in there and not do something with it. Right. It's gonna be like it's got NFC capability. We hope people take it. No. They're gonna be wanting to go to Visa and MasterCard. Right. You're gonna have someone on stage go and this is the guy from MasterCard. Yeah. Exactly. How awesome. It'll be still showered. Like we have so and so from Visa here. Right. Right. And then it's gonna be a carrier. It's gonna be and I'm willing to bet it'll be Verizon that says we have a payments platform. All of our phones. So it's gonna be the Verizon's. What is the payment platform they support? Oh what's it. Oh it has a name. Oasis. It's another format we have to worry about. Which NFC. Pando daily. What's it called? I don't know. Pando daily is a new technology website. What's it called? It's driving me crazy. It's definitely not Pando daily. I'm searching. We'll just wait here while you search. You know it's no problem at all. Hold on. We've covered this at length. It's driving me crazy. Did you use stream now? The silence is killing me. I hope it loves. Oasis. Oasis. That's like Pando daily. Isn't Oasis like the best thing ever? Yeah. It's the best thing ever. It's the best thing ever. It's the best thing ever. It's the best thing ever. Isn't Oasis like the bad guys from what's it called? The FX cartoon? By the way, do you know Sneakers was on at two in the morning the other night? I stayed up until four watching it. Really? The end. That's all. I just want to let you know that whatever... I think we might be getting close to wrapping up this Virgcast, I have to say. We have to finish talking about... It's pretty clear to me that we are running out of steam. It's been a really long week. It has. I always say that. But we should finish talking about Windows phone. Can we? We need to begin talking about it. Well, because you hijacked us with the centerpiece. I didn't hijack it. You hijacked it. I just said it was a long ways off. Too many secrets. Go ahead. To be honest, that was probably more interesting than everything else I had to say about this. Windows 8 integration, Bill Fiore intimated that you could reuse, quote, most of their code when importing apps from the desktop to the phone. Which they have to. If they don't do that, they have failed utterly. Right, because it's the same like Metro UI look style. Well, part of it. Part of it. Here's the big thing. You can skin the camera app, at least the viewfinder part, which is as much as you can possibly get right now. Can't you already do that on like the HTC devices? I don't think so. No. Well, what's the skin the camera app? It's like you can make it look like what you want. Wow. I guarantee you that that is totally driven by HTC. Because HTC is really big on the Android camera. We want to skin the entire OS. No. What if we just skin, like what if we just put our own little toolbar at the bottom? No. Okay. What if we do like a skinned version of the browser? No. Okay. The camera? Yeah. No, but HTC... Okay, you can skin the camera. You can skin the crazy Android camera stuff. That's by the way, that was Drew Bamford personally asking Steve Ballmer. A very quiet reserve Steve Ballmer going, no, no, no. Yeah. But I mean, it could be HTC. It also could be Nokia going, we're going to put a bigger emphasis on cameras than everyone else is. We'd like to have more control. We're putting a really good lens in our camera. So we want to put like a faux leather texture so that people would recognize... You joke, but you know that's the conversation. So that people know just how good... Look, look, your camera looks nice and everything, but it's just, you know, you really, we really need to put a leather texture in here for people to understand how good the camera is. It's a natural feel. It looks more... It's retro. Yeah. It's retro vintage. We're doing filters. So... Okay. But Skype integration at the OS level is kind of nuts. Yeah. Just like they did with webOS. I mean, or... Remember that? Remember that everybody? No, you don't. No, it doesn't. It was awful. It didn't work. You know what? I mean, if it had worked, that could have been a game changer. Just kidding. But it could have been, you know, at least something that would, you know, made having a touchpad worthwhile. Anyway, a lot of the other additions are like, are like catch up stuff, like data tracking. You know, if they had made the touchpad good, if it had been really good, if they had just the exact same OS, but everything worked and was really smooth and fluid, that would have been pretty good. You know, this isn't just a show for the podcast. He really does walk around going, you know what, HP. Oh, every day. In every meeting it starts this way. Let's talk about one more kind of big Microsoft story, and then we can talk about the peak being dead. I also, wait, I want to talk, I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about my Blackberry editorial. You know you want me to talk about it. I purposely left it off the list. You know you want me to talk about it. We talked about the Blackberry. No, no, we got to talk more about it. All right, let me transition the other Microsoft thing and we can do that. Okay, great. What is it? So very quietly this past few weeks, Microsoft and Google have been in a gigantic fight over Google's new privacy policy. It has been a big. And it's really insane. It's like this slow burn of a fight, and it's kind of like Google doesn't know how to play, because Microsoft does really mean stuff. They're doing really mean stuff. So the backstory is Google is changing its company-wide privacy policy. It's March 1st. All of Google's products will use the same privacy policy. There's a huge change within it, which means they were already, if you read all the individual privacy policies, they were sharing data across services. But now since a unified policy, they're saying, we'll share what you search for on YouTube to influence your general search results. And what you look for, what you read on Gmail, we'll use that data to influence our other products. Did they say that? Did they actually use that data to do anything? I mean, my impression is that they didn't say. Right, they're saying Google has said to me, and I've talked about it with them. They have said to me pretty directly, this is a no-change situation. What we're doing is we're making it simpler, we're making it easier for people to understand, and people are overreacting. Microsoft has completely taken advantage of this. I think in some sense, they are overreacting. I think Google is trying to make it simpler. Well, Microsoft has been like... They've been hammering Google on this stuff. They're taking out ads in like the New York Times, they're publishing videos with like evil The Gmail Man video was published today. That makes me so happy, because this got leaked back in like July or something. They were showing it to like partners, right? Now they're like, screw it, put it out. And it's this video of this guy like reading your email as he delivers it to you. You know, I have to say... So first off, I use... We have hosted Gmail, which has no ads. And I'm using Mailplane. I've turned the ads off. I mean, what are they reading my emails to put ads? And I don't see them. I mean, a machine, which is not sentient, is reading them, looking for keywords. Not yet. And... Well, I mean, this is a conversation... I've never even looked at an ad in Gmail. This is a conversation that was being had on Gmail when it launched, right? Which was they're gonna read your email, and nobody cares. Ultimately, nobody cares. Well, I mean, I think somebody cares if like those emails are being sent to a room somewhere where some guy is reading through them, trying to come up with the best ads to sell against them. Well, if something... It doesn't matter who reads them to serve the ads. The trade-off is... I mean, they're still on Google servers. Google servers see them. Right. Right. But who else? I mean... Well, no, but I mean, that's the question. Does anybody else see them? Right. But that's why the privacy policy is so important, like ultimately. And I think what's really interesting is that Microsoft has decided in the past week that the best way to engage Google directly in a fight is to say they're stealing your information and sharing it with other people. Whether or not that's true, they've decided that their best tactic is, let's go after Google's weak point, which is their perceived evilness, which is insane for a company that for so long has been the don't be evil company. And Microsoft has just decided, and they're doing a really good job of it, I think. And Google is doing a really poor job of deflecting it, because I don't think they have any sort of training or understanding or experience defending that particular... But to be honest, do you really think it's actually making any impact? I don't think it is. You think he was watching an ad and going, well, I guess I better switch back to Hot Mail. Well, it's scaring the hell out of Google, at the very least. I think people see who... I mean, I think people who are inclined to be scared may be scared, like old people. I think that people like us... I mean, I'm not saying that Microsoft isn't trustworthy, because I'm sure they are, but they're about as trustworthy as Google, as far as I'm concerned. As trustworthy as any other major corporation that wants to make money off of me. And let's make no mistake about it. What was that sound? Outside? Just an earthquake? Really? Yeah. Okay. I mean, every major company that exists wants to make money off of me. They're either gonna sell me something or use something of mine to sell me... Use information of mine to have somebody else sell me something, or whatever. They want my money. And it wasn't long ago that Microsoft was the evil monopoly. People still remember that. Yeah, right. No, no, no. I mean, the idea that Microsoft is somehow this wonderful, open, transparent, nice company that doesn't want to make money off of you is laughable. They're a huge company. What they're doing is they're scared shitless that Google is taking their customers. No, I was saying, that's what's really interesting. That's the thing behind you. Sorry. What just happened? Just kick that. Just... Wow. Gotta fix that. Can we get some duct tape on that or something? Wow. Sorry. We have a loose connection here. I'm pretty sure the earthquake that we just felt was the reason that thing moved. Just take this off again. Take your headphones off. That was a real good movement. Take your headphones off. Good call. Did you hear that? Is anyone in the podcast doing that? Or is it... No, it's just us. Okay. It was just us. So our microphone amp has a bad connection. Yeah, we have a bad cable here, and it's just causing some more... And I'm pretty sure that truck rolled by and actually moved it. Yeah, it might have, actually. Anyhow, so... Wow, I was real shocked to the system. Feels good? I'm feeling a little bit awake. Feeling a little more alive right now. Yeah. Somebody give me a cigarette. Wait, what? I think it's a non-smoking studio. It's a non-smoking studio. Anyhow, what the hell were we talking about? Gmail, man. Gmail, man. I was just saying that they're scared that Google's taking their customers, which they are. Yeah. They are taking their customers, and that's why Microsoft is at risk, because people are using Google Docs instead of Word. Right. And that's upsetting to them, and they're using Gmail instead of Hotmail. Right. They're not going completely on the offensive saying, don't use these, but they're not saying why you should use them instead. I mean, I've used Hotmail. Yeah. It's not... It's fine. It's just not as good as Gmail, in my opinion. Yeah. Right. And also, whatever. I'm not gonna... Also, Microsoft reads all my emails. Yeah. I mean, I don't care. It's just, you know, honestly, I'm very satisfied. And by the way, I've written recently about Google's privacy changes, and I appreciate that there's a legitimate reason to be suspicious of any major company. Well, dude, this is the same thing. Google is the internet. So when Google changes its privacy policy... Well, I'm more upset and concerned with the search changes, and I think they're really stupid. And I think that they're gonna get dinged for it by the government, and I think they have a responsibility, unfortunately, for who they are to not interject search results with Google Plus stuff. Is this the search plus thing you're talking about? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I just think it needs to get... Number one, I think at the core of it, it doesn't improve my search. It actually makes my search worse because I don't wanna see what my friends have shared about Britney Spears when I search for Britney Spears. I wanna see Britney Spears nude pics. That's all I'm looking for. And so like... Every time I search for something... Does it help me if I see like that somebody's listening to a Britney Spears song? That is not relevant to my interest. It's actually funny because every time I search for anything tech related, Google image search, I'm looking for something or Britney Spears nude. I find your picture comes up in the top row of Google images and your friends like these images related to the search. Yeah, right. It's stupid. It's so stupid. So first and foremost, it has nothing to do with my privacy or if they're being fair to Twitter and Facebook. It has to do with the search results are worse. And that's like Google's job number one on the search page is give me good search results. If you don't give me good search results, I will happily leave your search engine for one that gives me better search results. And by the way, don't be confused about this, Google. You are one better search engine away from being obsolete. Just the way Firefox was one Google Chrome away from being obsolete. And like the truth about technology is you're only as good as your last idea. And like the one that's better from somebody else, like no one cares. They're happy to jump ship. It's easy to download a new piece of software and it's easy to change your default search engine. In many ways, Microsoft's biggest problem with Bing is that they've been too afraid to try something new. Right. Bing looks like Google. Like ultimately it is Google search. If I could be, if somebody could prove to me that search results are better than Bing and also if it could become like I'd say 400 times less ugly, like it is the ugliest. Oh, it's the worst. The ugliest service. I mean, so ugly. Even from Microsoft standards, it's ugly. That logo is the worst. It is the worst. It is so ugly, so badly done. Like it looks like it was done by a 12 year old who was using MS Paint for the first time. It's not that bad, but it is pretty awful. But like, here's the thing. Bing's fine. I think actually it's a fine search engine. I just wrote a thing in Washington Post, which is like, if you hate Google and you want to switch to something else, here's some alternatives. And it was Bing, DuckDuckGo, BlackGo and Wolfram Alpha just because like for like getting raw data, I think it's really amazing. But and they all have really great, there's some really great stuff going on with all of the search engines. None of them are as good as Google. But if any one of them were as good as Google and I knew it, I would be happy to use it instead of Google. And that's what Google really needs to know. So like it's the search plus stuff isn't upsetting because my privacy has been invaded or like Facebook has been dissed. It's upsetting because it doesn't produce better results. And if Google can't keep producing the best search results, they're in real trouble in my opinion. Yeah. Because that's their bread and butter. That's what I'm saying. I mean, Microsoft, they just need to try something. They can't copy Google and do better. No. I don't think that's workable. I don't understand their offerings. Like what is my Google? I'm a regular consumer. What is my, I want to have like documents online. I want to have a calendar. I want to have email. What is your product for that? Google or Microsoft? Microsoft. I know what Google's product is. It's Google. It's Google Docs, Google Calendar, Gmail. I mean, Hotmail does that stuff. It does email. What's the docs part? Office 360. 365. Yeah, whatever. What is that? Do I have to pay for that? No. A lot of it's free. A lot of it's free? Yeah. There's stuff you do have to pay for. That's the thing. Let's do some online shopping. But to their Gmail ad, like explain to me what their offering is so I can leave Gmail. Because I don't understand it. What I'm saying is like maybe that's it, but they're not making any clear. It's a free trial. You're kidding me. Okay. Free trial. You don't have to pay for your service. You know what Google does? This looks like a Turbo Tax page. Here's the deal. Let me see it. Oh my God. It's really bad. Yeah, it's terrible. Look at that. Microsoft, no one's going to use Office 360. So here's the deal. Like here's the deal. I trade, Google and I have a good trade going on. This is why I like to use their service. Right? Oh good, I have to use Silverlight. I get... Oh God, there's a Silverlight update. Microsoft, I'm not watching the Office 365. So I get good free services from Google. It's a transition to plug-in free. My payment, the way I pay them is that I let them read my emails and show me ads. Right? Because I don't, but there's some percentage of users that will click on those ads and they're able to make money that way. Yeah. So pretty good trade... A lot of money. Pretty good trade off for a guy like me. I use the products. The products are good. They're updated often. They add new features all the time. They work really well. I mean, like they work really well, especially for collaboration when you're doing doc stuff. They work really well. The best collaboration of anything I've ever... Best collaboration tool I've ever seen in my life is Google Docs. Like multiple people editing a document at one time. Like it's the most incredible form of collaboration online that I've ever seen, I think. Like can you think of a better one? Google Wave. I mean, there are other apps that do it. Yeah, Google Wave. I know there's other apps that do it, but the seamlessness with which it's carried out by Google is brilliant. Anyhow, the trade off is they show me ads. Microsoft, first off, I don't know what your offerings are. Like do you have a consumer facing offering? Like I'm not a business. I want to like do some stuff with my friends. I mean, I have a business and I pay for Google apps hosting and whatever. But first off, define your offering. Second, like is your offering free? Oh, I have to pay for it? Well, I don't want to pay for it. I'd rather look at ads I never click. So how do you compete with that? You don't. It's freemium. It goes back to Microsoft's fundamental problem. They're an institution. They work to spite themselves. Like their successes are like, Windows is everywhere. There's Netflix on the Xbox. That was the first one. It takes forever to get to it, but it's there. It's better now. It's a little better. It's gotten better. You can do this. I use voice being all the time and doing it. Voice being? Voice being. I'm voice being all the time. Does voice being search the web? On the Xbox, no. Not on the Xbox. Just searches your... You use voice being? I just got an iPhone 4S last night. I've been trying to use Siri all day because I'm excited. And no. No, but I've been... But you're in the living room screaming at the Xbox. I'm really pissing off in my room. It's because I'm watching Breaking Bad. It's because you talk too quiet. I'm watching Breaking Bad and I'm just screaming. Siri. I'd like to make a phone call. Siri. You know what's really annoying about Siri? What? Is that she doesn't know that I have multiple calendars. So I'm like, Siri, make me an appointment for tomorrow at 1 o'clock. She's like, you have 37 appointments. And it's like, no, a lot of those are calendars that aren't my calendar. You're not... Siri is for old people. Siri is for like, baby boomers. It's not for a guy like you. I know they show a guy like you jogging. He's like, oh, this busy guy. I've been jogging all day. But you know, jogging stuff aside, you know, he's a busy guy. He's like, oh, I gotta move my schedule around. He has four appointments that day. You literally have calendars with staff schedules, editor schedules, feature stuff coming in. I just wanted to look at my schedule. We're really, really busy. When you add something, does it know which calendar to go to? It defaults, right? Yeah, well, it will default to my calendar. But then when I'm like, make me an appointment, she's like, you have 55 appointments tomorrow. But there are all these other calendars to just let me track what's going on that aren't my calendar. You know what your problem is? You gotta stop using calendars. Yeah, just do something different. Anyhow, but to Mike, what were we talking about? You were saying something about Microsoft. I was just saying, I piss off on my own. I use the voice part of Connect all the time. I've been watching Breaking Bad and just screaming Xbox pause, Xbox play, Xbox next episode over and over again all week. Xbox, is he gonna make more meth? Xbox, no. All right, let's just wrap it up. You wanna talk about your Blackberry thing? I wanna talk about my Blackberry editorial. All right. So I wrote an editorial about Blackberry. Another editorial. We should have a stream of Blackberry editorials. Chris wrote one a while ago. Joanna wrote one a while ago. Did she? Yep. Jacob wrote one. Dieter's done a couple other things. We have now every, Dieter wrote one? Every single human at the verge from the editor in chief to the intern have now written impassioned editorials to RIM about how to fix the company. It won't listen. My editorial was really like, actually it wasn't that impassioned. It was just like nuts. It was brass tacks. I just think that their recent CEO change is kind of a smokescreen. I think it's just kind of BS. And I think that it's basically Lazaridis and Balsillie were like, indignantly, how dare they suggest that we are not running this company perfectly? Fine. Give these schmucks what they want. Give these idiots a new CEO, the puppet CEO of Torsten Heinz. And go look at the leadership on the RIM site. It's like Torsten, which I believe is how his name is pronounced, Lazaridis and Balsillie on the same line. There's no... It's not like CEO up here and these are some little jerks over here. Essentially, they've added a third CEO, a third guy, maybe a director, but it's the same calls. And he came out of the gate saying like, basically stay the course. There's nothing wrong here, which is what they've been saying all along. And then he's backtracked and said, no, no, no. Of course, there's problems we're gonna fix. My editorial was, you need to be... This is like, you gotta be brash. I think there's this belief. They're like, yeah, we're not doing well in the US, but we're doing well in Europe and Asia, developing countries. But it's like Nokia has been saying that, was saying that same thing. You're just like later in the curve. Oh, there's free office web apps. That's what I mean, Yota. I don't want to say that. You're being yelled at? That there are free office web apps. Cool. All right. You have to use SkyDrive though. I don't have to pay for anything? I don't know. But that's what I'm saying. If this offering exists, make this a consumer-facing offering that people understand. They just want to sell it to people who buy Windows PCs. They're like, hey, did you know you can get Office online? It's like, that's great. But what about for the rest of the world that doesn't want to use Office, that isn't using a PC that has Office on it? Well, I know. I'm watching a video of a woman using OneNote, okay? And that's what's happening. I know OneNote, but okay, anyhow. Torsten. Torsten. Anyhow, so I just think that they're saying what Nokia was saying a few years ago, and Nokia is making Windows phones now. I've been saying, Rim's gonna be making Windows phones forever. They'd be better off making Windows phones than what they're doing right now. I just think people are like, you haven't seen Blackberry 10 yet. It's like, what is Blackberry 10 going to do that Android doesn't do, or that the iPhone doesn't do, or that Windows phone doesn't do? And by the way, those all do basically the same thing. So what is gonna be the killer edge? Better security? BBM? The stuff that no one really cares about at this point? Android apps. Android apps. I mean, they're doing this thing with the Playbook. They should abandon the Playbook right now. They should really not spend any more time making Playbooks. Look, I'm not gonna back down from this. They should let all that shit go and make Windows phones. It's bad. The Playbook is bad. It was bad from the start. Hey, Playbook 2.0 is a whole new ball game now. It's gonna keep being bad. No one cares about it. It has no cohesive app development strategy. This thing, let's talk about Rim for a second. Let's talk about the Playbook. You made some mistakes. Let me tell you about your mistakes. You released a product. You released a product that was supposed to represent the next generation of what you were doing, and you didn't include your most crucial key elements in that product, email and messaging. You've been boasting about your security and your speed of email and your great messaging client, and you released a flagship tablet product that was supposed to represent the next stage of Blackberry's evolution without, literally with no email on it. And it's like, how bad are you at your jobs? Like, this is crazy to me. It'd be like if we put out the site with no news. The Verge is here, and it's just a product database and a forum, and it didn't have any of the news piece, right? Like that's what, that's like, why would we do that? I'm just saying like... I'm not gonna... I mean, and we've seen that too. I mean, what I'm saying is, I'm just saying like... I think we know how that goes. Well, I mean, but that was what we did news. No, but I'm saying we did news. Don't look at me that way, Creighton. Look, it's a stealth burn, and I... It's not a burn. I'm just saying that we do news. I like doing news. Like this whole team... This person's like, what'd you do without any nudes? That's all stuff... Without any nudes, that's true. But I'm just saying like, as a parallel, like I think that I excel and our team excels at like producing news content. And the other stuff is like, there's like a connection. There's like a connective, you know, the connectivity amongst those things is like what makes the site great, I think. So like I wouldn't take one of those big elements out and say like, it's here, like here it is. Like the news element, like their news is email. Like that's their core thing. Like email and BlackBerry Messenger is like their core, like what they want to tell you, right? They're like, hey, we have flash apps. You know what? Take five seconds of the development of your flash app engine and put an email client on your device. Because... And then it's like, this is just for people... It's again, like it also falls in line with what I said in my editorial, where they just want to sell to people who own BlackBerrys. They just want to keep selling to their fan base. They did that with the playbook where they were like, well, you have a BlackBerry phone. So, but no, the tablet market isn't based on like what phones people have. It's based on like, I want a tablet because it's a new thing and they're cool and they do special stuff. So just like, it's like, you think it's like a little, you made some mistakes. You totally boned what you're supposed to be doing. And it's aggravating to watch them act all nonchalant. Yeah, we're going to get on course. Windows Phone. Windows Phone, it's your only option. They have to make Windows Phone. They have to go to all of the enterprises they sell to right now. I mean, Nokia did the same thing. They just kept going like, Symbian is great and our next phone is going to be awesome. Just wait till you see... Windows Phone. What was the version? What was the last version of Symbian? And they were like, just wait till you see this. I remember. And what was the phone? It was like the... They released a phone where it's like, we have a touch screen keyboard now. And remember... And Thomas Shroeder called it herpes. Yeah, they didn't want to... Remember they didn't want to use capacitive displays. I know, but I'm not going to search in gadget for herpes. They wanted to use resistive. Oh, Syphilis. It was Syphilis. I was like, we didn't tag it herpes. I think it was Syphilis. They have a new search now. The point is like, you can talk about how great your past successes are till you're blue in the face, but that doesn't... And they're still in with technology. N97. N97. I remember that a huge marketing push for it. They were like, this is the next generation. We've done it. That's Blackberry 6, Blackberry 7, and probably Blackberry 10. I mean, but I'm waiting. I want to see it. I want to be blown away. You know what else is free? Syphilis. And like the S60 fifth operating system, it comes dressed in a beautiful package that drives you mad just as soon as you turn it on. That might be the best thing Thomas Ricker has ever written. He's written so much. Yeah. Also, that is the beginning of that is to Chris Ziegler, my dear misguided colleague. All right, because it's all letters back and forth. That's great. Anyhow, long and short is I'm utterly uninspired by what RIM is saying and doing right now. And I think that the guy they put in charge, and you know, I haven't talked to him. They wanted him to talk to Crackberry. Yeah, but they didn't want to talk to other people. They called Crackberry first thing. They called Crackberry first thing. It's because, you know, they want to sell to people who are around them. Yeah, rather the trips a little bit. I mean, it's great. Yeah, but you know what? Apple doesn't call Mac rumors when they've got a new product. They call Josh DePaul. They call Wall Mossberg. And you know what? No shame in that game. He's been around a long time. He deserves it. He's earned it. Yeah. But watch out Mossberg. I'm watching you. I've been watching for a long time actually. It's really fascinating. I've actually like, I've actually become pretty friendly with Wall. Over the last couple of years. And I have to say, I... You're the next generation of Walt. You're cranky. I am cranky. You're getting smaller with every passing year. He's not tall, but I have to say, he's entertaining as hell. Oh, he is. You go to a dinner with Walt. He will get into it. He gets into it. He does not let people like... If you think you're gonna have a relaxing dinner with Walt Mossberg, it's not gonna happen. He will kill you. Anyhow, that's all I have to say. Is that it? RIP. Talk to me. I got something funny to say. Windows Phone, dude. Quit saying RIP. Quit saying Windows Phone. It's gonna... There's only two choices. You're like seizing on the... Wait, two choices. Windows Phone. Antizin? No, they're not gonna do that. That would be death. The two choices are... And for Android, Windows Phone. They go out of business. WebOS. Or they do Windows Phone. There are no other choices. WebOS, dude. Yes, open source. Open source, baby. And yo. Baby. Baby. That's the Vergecast for this week by thanks to Neelai and Ross. This guy. Great. Ross, great job. Yeah. Thank you. Good job for you. You're one of the first that hasn't started crying. Yeah. Do not cry. Do not cry on cue. It's not over yet. Do not cry. What is that? What is this? Why are you doing this? What's that? Creighton's going like this. Do you have any music? Do you have any... Roll out. We can roll out when he's crying, but now I'm... Oh, you want to roll out on him crying? You want me to cry again. Can you cry softly? Yeah. And I will do this. Can you cry softly while I do the outro? So that's the Vergecast for this week. If you want to get in touch with us... By the way, we've made so many requests of the controller. Hold on. If you want to get in touch with us... And all we've got is Creighton looking at us like we're morons. And then some violent music like 20 minutes late. He doesn't want to show his disappointment to the team in here. That's why he's looking out here when there's no sound effects. That's the Vergecast for this week. Why are you ruining the party? If you'd like to get in touch with us, you can email us at podcast at theverge.com. You can leave a comment on the post when it goes up, or you can find us on Twitter. I'm Joshua Topolsky. Nilay is reckless. Ross Miller is OhNoRosco. OhNoRosco, no E on the end. Also the Verge is at Verge. And we'll be back next week with more delicious, nutritious podcasts. Maybe with Collins. There's a chance. With what? Collins. Phone calls. I thought you were like naming somebody named Collins. Like who's Collins? I called that. Collins is in town. Nobody told me that. No, yeah, potentially with Collins. We're thinking about doing live calls on the next one. Collins is in town. Do you mind? That's the show. Rock and roll. Oh! This is Equity Now where we take photos and present them to you separately on Instagram. refreshing, climbs better, ecological, experience, quality. you