So you might have guessed it, this post is about Ping, or rather about the posts about Ping. The usual suspects have been writing about this already (as they should), but what struck me quite surprisingly was that all of them were disappointed by the social networking capabilities of the new iTunes feature. After all, that’s what it is. The misunderstanding I’m sensing here is that people were expecting a Facebook or Twitter Killer App. Guess what, it’s not. It’s not even intended to be. It’s a well-thought idea to sell more stuff by having people promote what they like. It’s the opportunity of having a conversation or building a tribe right in the marketplace — you can’t go any closer. VentureBeat says this feature might well extend to books, movies and apps too. I wonder why Apple didn’t make it so straight away, because the adoption curve doesn’t change.

But what if it doesn’t work? So what? To all who forgot, Apple doesn’t depend on Ping’s success. FastCompany compared this to Google Buzz, which started out with a similar user base (160 million) and still wasn’t a huge success.

Sidebar: FastCompany also writes
“But, once again, Apple is living just a little bit in the future. If it didn’t deliver a signature element of risk in its new product launches, well, it’d be Sony.”
That’s what it looks like. Yet Sony, at its core, is still a lot like Apple. When founded about 65 years ago, they only succeeded because of their persistent belief in transistor technology (and engineering genius, of course), just the way Apple do with their products.

The people who really depend on it (some more than others) are the musicians. Independent artists on CD Baby are worried if Apple will give them access to their album pages so they can use this new opportunity. I’m curious to see how much time Apple will give to its new idea before its declared success or failure.

Initial situation: MacBookPro, 500GB hard drive. One Partion (200GB) running Leopard, another partition (150GB) with Snow Leopard (installed for testing purposes), and the last 150GB were on partition 3 with my music samples library.

Goal: Have Snow Leopard on the first partition with not-much-more space than it needs, the User data on the second one with 250GB, and the last partition stay the same.

Now one might think working on a Mac is straightforward (it is), but when it comes to HD issues, it’s almost as bad as a Windows PC. So just in case anybody out there needs some help with a similar issue, here’s what I did.

A. Make a Backup. If you’re using Time Machine that’s fine, if not you might consider Carbon Copy Cloner.

B. Make sure your backup works, the system should be bootable and all your data should be there.

[B2 Update Leopard to Snow Leopard. Fortunately it takes less space on the disk.]

C. Changing volumes and partitions: It’s no problem to make a volume smaller (in Disk Utility you just drag the grey-striped triangle in the lower right corner of a volume), but unfortunately the space that becomes available can not be assigned to another volume straight away. You need to do this in two steps.

1. Merge both volumes. This has to be done in the Terminal. Go to “Utilities” in your “Applications” folder (or press Cmd-Shift-U) and launch the Terminal app. It’s just a plain text command line tool.
   First, enter diskutil list . This will display a list similar to this:
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   
   

   In my case, I wanted to merge #2 and #3. Here’s the command (one line):
   diskutil mergePartitions “Journaled HFS+” new disk0s2 disk0s3
   Brief explanation: The first volume needs to have a Journaled HFS+ file system (standard in Mac OS X), otherwise all data will be wiped. We need to tell the computer that the merged partition will have the same file system. “new” is the dummy name for the merged partition, because oddly enough Mac OS keeps the name of the first partition of the merged group. Then comes the list of volume identifiers you want to merge. I only did this for two, but I’m sure you can also merge more volumes in one go. Maybe you can even write JHFS+ instead of “Journaled HFS+”, but I didn’t test it.

2. Next, resize the big volume in the Disk Utility and create a new one in the freed-up space, or use the Terminal which is quicker but doesn’t look so fancy. The command is (sizes just my example, yours may differ)
   diskutil resizeVolume disk0s2 90G JHFS+ Users 250G
   Or use Disk Utility, drag your volume handle until the desired size is displayed (or enter it manually), then click the “+” button beneath the disk list to create a new volume.
   Note: No matter if you use the Terminal or Disk Utility, don’t panic when you get an error message during resizing. Mac OS sometime can’t allocate the disk space properly if you “over-shrink” a volume (say, from 200 to 50 GB). In this case, you may try going about half the way down, and then repeat the procedure until your volume has the desired size.

D. Phew. Now let’s move your home folder to the Users Volume, using Terminal again. Here goes (one line again):
sudo ditto -rsrc /Users/[YourUserNameHere] /Volumes/[VolumeName]/[FolderName]/[YourUserNameHere]
The sudo ditto -rsrc command makes sure all the metadata of your files  are preserved when copied.

E. When finished, go to your System Preferences, select User Accounts, unlock and right-click (or Ctrl-click) on your username, select “Advanced Options” and set the Home directory to your freshly copied folder. Then you’ll have to reboot and everything should be working fine. At least it did with me. If you’re using the NoScript-AddOn for Firefox, you’ll have to uninstall and re-install it because it doesn’t “get” the new folder. Th main upside of this procedure is that now you can take your user data to any other Mac by just cloning it to an external drive. Or easily back up all your Users’ data.

Please do not forget to make a backup before you do anything on (or to) your system. Backups are your friend.
Hat tip to Jon at Ransom Note Typography for the Home folder moving tip, and all the people at the Mac forums all over the Web. What I’ve written here is just a brief summary of their work. And if you liked using the Terminal, here’s a list of other things you can do with it.

[Update: The whole process does mess things up. For instance, if you have virtual machines like VMware Fusion running, you'll need to re-assign the machine files -- no big deal here. The major downside (at least in my case) is that TimeMachine understands the new configuration as an entirely new system and re-does the whole backup.]

• “The middle class still exists.” — Professor Wagner from the German Institute of Economics Research said that although the layer of middle income has diverged to either side of the edge, there are no more rich people than a few years ago. This is obvious as long as people keep spending more money the more money they earn. Who doesn’t save or invest won’t become wealthy. Still, it’s important to note that the symbols of wealth haven’t changed over the years. One generation back, when you had a Mercedes, you had to be rich. That’s not the case today, but people still assume it were. It’s important to be clear about the context you’re measuring.
• “There is a market for middle brands.” — Dr Adlwarth from the GfK Group pointed out that in the last years the competition in consuming goods was between major brands at the pricing top end and no-brand products on the bottom end. Consumers went for either-or, and there was not a lot of middle ground. This trend, he went on, changed in 2009, when suddenly they saw a trend in rising market share of middle brands, which are characterized as regional and rich in tradition.
  Here’s a different point of view: There’s 3 kinds of stuff you can buy: Commodities, which are cheap and don’t help improve your image. Premium goods, which are expensive and for that reason they raise your image (see Mercedes example above). And then there’s stuff you care about. Things you buy because you like them regardless of cost. This is the niche category. Products that are not for everyone, the manufacturers of which have understood they can’t please everyone and they don’t have to. Vita Cola is successful in the eastern regions of Germany, but not in the west. Blackwood Forest ham sells most successfully in the southern regions but not in the north. There’s an infinite number of products with only a small market share but each of them has enough margin so the companies still make a solid profit. This has nothing to do with middle. Middle is just a convenient, yet useless wrapper because Dr Adlwarth does not seem to acknowledge the existence and power of passion and tribes.
• “The digital middle” — This is actually a false label for the talk by the Global Director Consumer Electronics of the GfK Group. He analyzed the market for TV sets. Not quite a surprise that it turned out that when LCD and plasma TV were introduced, they were very expensive, but the more the overall market share grew, the pricing range diverged. Honestly, I have no idea why I would have anyone talk about the mechanics of the adoption curve these days. It’s not leading edge science any more.
• “Communication for middle market brands” — I won’t comment on this talk by an advertiser because it makes me throw up. As usual, a wrong concept leads to wrong conclusions that, if presented conclusively, will appeal to an uneducated audience.

So why all this obsessing about the middle? Because it’s an easy concept. It’s less scary to think of high, middle and low instead being on a knife’s edge. It allows settling for less — if you’re not a superstar, you’re not automatically a loser, because there’s still the middle. Middle sounds good, it’s not too much in any direction.

But middle also artificially creates a new battlefield which in reality doesn’t exist. It’s easier for analysts to look at a large plane than an infinite number of small planes, because only on a large plane there can be a battle and therefore a winner. But there is no large plane and no battle for the middle. Middle is a transitional state: You’re either on your way up or the way down, no place where you can stay for long, because the winners are automatically promoted to the top end and the losers go out of business. No matter if it’s in the overall market or in a niche.

Now I’m not surprised that the HP people screwed up by sticking to the manual. What I’m surprised about is that the reseller missed the opportunity to be remarkable and actually help their customer. Instead of saying “You know what, we will take care of this. We’ll give you a new machine with all your data transferred, sort this thing with HP and when it’s fixed, we’ll change it back” they just passed the buck to HP. Because they could. The customer has the service agreement with HP, not them, their thinking is.

WDIFY still has a long way to go.

What did P&G do? VP Jodi Allen said:

“For a number of weeks, Pampers has been a subject of growing but completely false rumors fueled by social media that its new Dry Max diaper causes rashes and other skin irritations. These rumors are being perpetuated by a small number of parents, some of whom are unhappy that we replaced our older Cruisers and Swaddlers products while others support competitive products and the use of cloth diapers. [..]“ (find the full statement here)

Which means: You, the concerned parents, our customers, the people we wouldn’t be here without, are wrong. Go away.

And guess what? That’s what people do when you tell them. And they tell other parents too.

The smart thing to do is to embrace the customers and their concerns. If P&G had said: “We are very sorry. Your baby’s health and well-being is most important to us. Though we have done extensive testing, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission has confirmed that our product does not harm, it is possible that babies’ skin is irritated from time to time. The doctors we work with have said that this is not necessarily caused by the diaper. They advise to monitor the skin condition for 10 days, and if it’s not getting better, to have your doctor examine this. However, we do understand that you’re not fully satisfied with our product, that’s why we will do 2 things to improve the situation: First, we will give you a full refund for the new diapers. Just send an e-mail. Second, we kindly ask of you to stay in touch and tell us how your baby is getting better. All of your information will be kept confidential and only be used to help us improve our product. Thank you.”

Different message. Different result.

(Sidebar: TheChive’s successfully pulled off two more hoaxes in the past that got picked up by the media, and after the second one journalists said “You’re not gonna fool us again.” They were wrong. Huffington Post, Leno, you name it. When you’re hot, you’re hot.)

Here’s why: By design, a cover band exists to play songs that have been made and performed by others. It’s quite arguable if the songs themselves are to be considered art, but that’s a different (yet related) topic. The purpose of a cover band is to resemble the feeling of a song when they play it, only that it’s on stage and not at home, so you can have a good time with your friends. Musicians who play in cover bands do so because they love playing their instrument (sometimes to perfection), not because they feel the urge to create art. Because if they did, they’d spend their time creating and not mimicking.

That said, there is a huge difference between a Mariachi band covering Heavy Metal songs and a Rock/Pop ensemble (2 guitars, bass, drums, keys, brass trio, vocalists) covering songs arranged for this kind of ensemble. It’s remarkable versus predictable.

Funny enough, the article quoted the singer of the band that “it is one side of the coin to make it in today’s music market, but even harder to be accepted by endorsers and sponsors”. That’s quite obvious when you try to be everything to everyone. The marketer’s dilemma. And because there are marketers on the other side of the table too, it’s no safe bet for anyone. It makes sense for an instrument manufacturer to endorse an extreme performer because that gets them noticed, but maybe by fewer people. A middle of the road performer may find a larger audience, but they won’t give a lot about music gear. An artist doesn’t worry about this, because he has embraced that art does not depend on endorsements or sponsorships and she would never sacrifice this art for a little more comfort (only for a lot, that’s just how the lizard brain works).

A little aside: There’s an internet radio called NewcomerRadio, that says its mission is to promote newcomer bands to broadcast radio and other internet stream radio stations. Yet their stream sounds like any other radio station, because their rotation is the same. And so they pick their newcomers to fit into this rotation, and -presto!- nothing happens, because nothing stands out. Different artists that sound all the same. Wasted.

Doing the opposite would have a totally different effect. There’s thousands of bands out there, and I’d rather go to the edges instead of what used to be the centre. Brazilian Polka bands and Indian Viking Folk singers are just way cooler than yet another High School Punk band. It’s all there — if you dare. Yes, chances are you will lose your old listeners. The ones you will find instead will not only listen but also do the promotion themselves. Now that’d be helping your mission, wouldn’t it?

• Access (new) information regularly.
• Evaluate its relevance.
• Implement it to your routine.
• Observe. Measure and compare.
• Undo if it doesn’t work, learn from it and try something different.

So we went to Bauhaus, one of two DIY stores nearby, and asked the woman at the info counter if they’d cut our board. “No, we don’t do that.” Since we needed a plain wooden board from the DIY store too, we asked “If we get a board from you, you’d cut that?” “Yes.” “…and ours too?” “No.” “Thanks, bye.” So we grabbed our board and went to OBI, which has a reputation for being expensive (but Bauhaus isn’t cheaper). As we approached the info counter, the woman laughed, “Okay, I can already see the IKEA print on the board. You wanna go straight ahead.” Next thing you know, they sliced the board just as we wanted it, and even though there was a “Please consider that due to technical reasons cuts can’t be less than 10 cm from the board’s edge” sign, they managed to cut 1 cm off the edge, just as we needed it to be.

DIY is no future business model anymore. “We do it for you (no questions asked)” is the new standard. (Of course, if IKEA cut the boards the way you need them, it’d be even better.)