Steve Jobs just doesn't see life from normal people's perspective - so he has no way of making products REALLY for the rest of us. It's the rest of him - who (though clearly a genius) - has lost touch with what it means to NOT have all the money in the world - to hire people to fix, backup, convert, transport, keep alive - your digital life - as he regularly releases new OS's, hardware and cool information appliances.

I can just see Steve trying to convert from a PowerBook to iBook 17.4 - while trying to keep alive his Classic apps, which are the ONLY tools that he can use to edit his doctoral dissertation. While Microsoft doesn't even consider supporting old versions of their OS, Apple pretends like it's all supposed to work - but it doesn't. They then rely upon the few and the faithful, who they routinely fuck up the ass - just for fun (it appears.)

It's our job - just like Microsoft, the Japanese and endless copycats before them - to routinely rip off Apple - picking through all their good ideas - blending our own 'people's' version of what they're doing.

It's called 'embrace and extend'. Take what some company is doing - and make your own product offering(s) identical to it in features and functionality - but add your own brand, twist, backwards compatibility, etc. - to outfight them - to overachieve where they stayed conservative.

That's what we're doing.

But I guess we're gonna 'over conversational' - not fight. As I say to my NEW wife nowadays "I'm a lover not a fighter :-)"

It's downright scary to see Apple's new OS X version 10.2 and not think that this is eerily too close to what we want to do.

It's downright validating to see MacroMedia's MX product line and not realize that I gave them those features - on a list - back in 1998.

It's downright heartening to read about Passport, Palladium, Mira, Freestyle, Longhorn, Corona, or any of the new Microsoft initiatives - and realize that it's not a matter of if, but when. Eventually all this convergence, entertainment hub, post-production, encapsulated objects, hypermedia documents, compound document architecture, scalable content management, aggregated and unified messaging, remote control, electronic program guide, broadband brew hah hah will finally come into place - and they'll DEFINITELY will be the need of a tool environment like ours - to make it all make sense.

To pull it all together.

I'm even quoting from the MediaBand script now.............

:-)

But that was written back in 1993.

It's 2002 now.

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The Liberty Alliance announced this week that they had shipped their version of Passport. Our current working prototype is still called "MyMagicCarpetRide" - and it's dedicated to Dave Winer, John Borthwick and all the people that helped instill in me - the belief that an integration, aggregation and customization system was required - back in the summer of 2001. Oh - and Stanley Kubrick too - of course.

This same week - Microsoft announced their home media entertainment hub - which is basically a platform for us to run our integrated environment on top of. And AOL admitted that Pittman was leaving. I wonder if he convinced Eisner to give him HIS job.

And Apple announced OS X 10.2 was shipping early. "Gee I wonder why?"

Maybe because they're gonna charge $129 for each copy. Too bad they only have an installed base of 10M (or whatever it is.) Too bad it's not 100M or 1B.

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One of the reasons MacroMind was successful was our MacroMind Developers Conference.

I remember dreaming it up - with my ex - Devorah - and realizing that the strength of our developers and installed base - was our secret weapon. It suddenly dawned on us that THEY were the ultimate guerilla marketing weapon.

Though I think (in retrospect) we gave them too much credence and too many opportunities (which they didn't handle very well) - we COMPLETELY handed our developer community the concept of multimedia production work, multimedia presentations, visualizations, storyboarding, prototypes and a wealth of other multimedia related work - that enabled them to create businesses and flourish.

The problem was that up until then - MacroMind had been kept alive by that sort of work. Marney Morris had shown us - that there was lots of gold in them there hills. ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) and PDI (pacific data Images) were already well established companies - creating special effects and animated footage - based upon their own proprietary skills and know-how.

Earlier attempts at building 'software' companies that did production work (Robert Abel Assoc., and the folks who did Tron) had failed - so we assumed (wrongly) that we had to abandon the 'production' arena - and become an exclusive technology tools play. Anyway that loss of revenue stream and the slowness of the multimedia ramp up - is what the VC's justified in taking over MacroMind, merging it with Paracomp and eventually Authorware - and thus you have a caretaker mentality management team - that has destroyed all innovation and spark - to this day.

There are lots of things I've learned from this debacle - but foremost - is to "follow the food chain."

Watch where the money is - and goes.

And it goes into the pockets of the people who actually DO the work.

Sapient, Scient, Viant, Organic, RazorFish, Think, iXL, CKS, USWeb all proved that in the last few years.

For every content management system, middleware layer, server platform, new authoring tool, cool gizmo what-sa-ma-callit - there's 10 companies that have to use it. MacroMedia claims they have 1.2M Flash developers out there - though I doubt even 1% make a living at it now.

Anyway getting back to our developer's conference - the first one was held in my parents living room in 1986. In essence we were copying Apple and Microsoft - but being 3rd ain't bad. Many of the people reading this - were there that day (at least SOME of you!) and I don't have to tell you that not only was it exciting, fun and educational - but it was historic.

Later developer's conferences at the Chinatown Holiday Inn (which is now 3 blocks from where I live) and at the Embarcadero Hyatt (which is less than 1 block from where we currently live) established the premise that multimedia developers liked to hang out together, show off their stuff, suck as much knowledge as they could out of us - and get gigs.

Subconsciously I presided over the thing like a new type of rock festival. Woz had his US festival - I had our developer's conference. Our twins were born one week before the conference in 1991 - but that didn't stop Devorah from getting up out of bed, leading the whole thing and then showing off Aron and Jacob - in our suite upstairs.

That year we had to have TWO suites - as one HAD to be our 'software demo' headquarters - and the other housed the nanny and our three sons. We were proud parents - leading our company forward - with no fucking clue - as to what was about to happen!

:-)

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My buddy BigDave thinks this should be a compendium of flashbacks, stories and recants - blending the memories of many of us - into a 'insider's look at how it all unfolded'. He's probably right.

I've also got complaints about the 'drug' references - as if marijuana was a drug. And I've also got complaints that many of you haven't been receiving all the episodes - chapters - parts.

Feel free to:

- tell me to fuck off

- request missing chapters

- check it

- or not

:-)

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Adobe has been trying to find the right balance in a ramped down version of Photoshop http://news.com.com/2100-1040-943691.html.

Me too! This is the challenge we call face - as we try and humanize this arduous, techy process of creating on-line broadband multimedia user experiences usable by humans.

What it 'ease of use?'

Well our answer is that ease of use means something different for who the 'user' is. Ease of use certainly means something different for granny or an average user - than to an experienced Photoshop or Director developer.

But capitalists always want more They want move on down the pyramid, ever approaching that elusive 'mass market' - the consumers in all of us.

- - a member of an industry
- a citizen of a city or region
- a member of a tribe, affinity group or 'division'
- while at the same time - a member of a close-knit family or community
- while at the same time be an individual themselves

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And if that's all not enough - my kids are back from France.