My Experience on a Game Show, Part 4 - Episode 129

WARNING: This installment contains adult language.  Mostly uttered by Regis Philbin

My Experience on a Game Show, Part 3 - The Pre-Game Show

The 6am wakeup call came waaaaay too early for me.  I am not a morning person.  Nevertheless, Linda got up and showered, and I did the same after her.  Linda and I gathered our things, including our two clothing changes - we were to carry them both other - they had been approved the night before - and a book and shirt I wanted Regis to sign.  We then went downstairs to discover we were among the first to arrive at the van to take us to WABC studios.

My Experience on a Game Show, Part 2 - The Day Before The Show

When we arrived at Laguardia, we went to get our bags.... only to find out that our driver already had them.  That's right.  Disney sent a driver.

My Experience on a Game Show, Part 1 - How I Got To New York

As many of you are aware, I was on a game show in August 2000.  It was a small production, called "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire," starring a little-known daytime talk show host named Regis Philbin.

Going Viral AND Staying Viral

Friday, March 11, 2011 is a day that will live forever in Internet history.  On that day, the Comedy Central blog dedicated to the show Tosh.0 posted a video for the song “Friday”, by 13-year-old Rebecca Black, as part of a post called “Songwriting Isn’t For Everyone”.  I won’t be taking shots at young Ms. Black’s performance –many on the Internet have – but the song, as written, is awful.  At one point, the lyrics slowly explain the order of the days of the week.  A big conflict in the song is whether the singer will be sitting in the front or the back seat of the car.

Verizon Wireless Is NOT Getting The iPhone... Yet

I am the Rochester Smartphone Reporter for Examiner.com. Below is my first article. In case it doesn't get published in time - it being my first article, I don't get to do it willy-nilly - I wanted to put it here as well.

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Last week, Verizon Wireless sent invitations to an event in New York City. This announcement has been interpreted my many sources, including the Wall Street Journal, as the long-awaited announcement of the Verizon iPhone. Why else, the speculation continues, would Verizon Wireless be so flashy, and not announce this at the Consumer Electronics Show last week? It cannot possibly be anything less important than the iPhone.

However, this doesn't look to be a typical Apple announcement. There are several reasons to draw this conclusion.

• Apple has announced all their new technology over the last decade either on their own campus, in Cupertino, CA, or at their annual Developer's Conference. Lincoln Center in New York City is neither location.

• Apple makes their own product announcements. They didn't allow AT&T to announce the iPhone. They didn't allow Zynga to announce FarmVille for the iPhone. Sure, AT&T and Zynga were on stage and in attendance at their respective events, but it was Apple's show. This isn't.

• At CES, Verizon Wireless had a huge presence. Throughout the show, they introduced phone after phone after phone. Almost every phone they introduced was based on Google's Android Operating System. For Verizon to so quickly announce a product seen in the marketplace as a huge rival to the product line they spent the last week trumpeting seems counterintuitive.

• Verizon Wireless already has an Apple product in their stable - the iPad. However, their version of the iPad is the WiFi-only version. Currently, Verizon's network runs on a technology that does not require or utilize a SIM card. Apple's 3G products in the US all require SIM cards, which is great for the AT&T network. The next version of the Verizon Network, their 4G/LTE offering, does utilize SIM cards. It stands to reason that the first iPhone on Verizon will be an LTE phone. Those were all announced last week.

• More on the LTE front: Verizon Wireless is building their LTE network, but the coverage is still spotty, focused in some of the largest markets. If the iPhone is an LTE version of the device, its audience would be severly limited by this factor. On the other hand, if it were only a 3G device, the limitation would be the use of old technology that will be left behind by year's end. Either way, Apple loses here.

It's important to note that there is significant evidence and wide reporting that tomorrow's announcement is about Verizon's introduction of Windows Phone 7 to their offerings, and is not an Apple announcement. This reporting, right or wrong, has no bearing on the opinions expressed above. However, that phone, the HTC Trophy, is a 3G phone, and not reliant on LTE, which is why it was not announced at CES.

And it is possible that the speculation by the Wall Street Journal is right, and this speculation is incorrect. However, while the iPhone is imminent on the Verizon Wireless network, all signs point to that particular announcement coming well after tomorrow.

I look forward to your thoughts and comments on this subject!

Etch-a-Sketch

This is Etch-A-Sketch Guy doing my daughter's name. Enjoy.

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