1TO10REVIEWS

On a scale of 1 to 10, Crankjam seems creepy and weird.

Wait, hold on.  Let me explain.

While on Facebook, I saw an advertisement related to rock climbing.  I like rock climbing.  So I said to myself: “Why don’t you check that out.”  The ad suggested that the advertisers in question were seeking Beta testers to check out their new rock climbing-based social network.  I then thought to myself: “You’re on a social network right now.  Maybe this one would be cool too.”

So I clicked.  I was taken to a site offering me a free T-shirt to become a beta tester.  Interesting.  Not great.  Just interesting.  That’s a pretty old-fashioned marketing technique for a web 2.0-style site.  But hey, I wear t-shirts all the time.  And clearly these guys are not appealing to Twittering tech geeks (at least, not unless they also climb rocks.)  They are going after a niche (technically, it will have to be a niche within a niche, those who like rock climbing, and who also frequent the internet / social networking world.)  So, they decided to throw some marketing dollars into it.  I sort of get that - I guess.  I mean, they are going after a tough to reach audience.  Kinda.

What really threw me for a loop was the scammy, “sign up for 2 or more credit cards” advertisement I was shown right after I signed up for the Beta.  I gave them my info (email, DOB, gender, the basics), hit submit, and was immediately shown an advertisement displaying an awesome package deal of rock climbing gear, as long as I sign up for at least 2 services, for a fee of no more than $5.  Super ghetto.  Giant turn off.  Totally inappropriate.

I just find the whole thing frankly weird.  Are they trying to make ad money already?   On the signups to the private Beta they haven’t finished offering?  They’re throwing money away on the one hand (paying for ads they don’t really need,) and then trying to re-coup it in a totally inappropriate way on the other (serving creepy, spam ads.)  Here’s what I don’t understand:

• Crankjam is advertising on facebook for beta testers?  $$$
• Crankjam is giving away a free t-shirt for beta testing?  $$$
• Crankjam is pushing credit card schemes (and netflix memberships) after Beta signup?  Too weird.

Now I’m not just trying to be a pill here.  I like rock climbing.  And I like social networking.  I think it could be a great site.  I just don’t understand what they’re doing - seems like they’re robbing Peter to pay Paul.  Why are they buying ads on Facebook to recruit for their private beta?  More importantly, why are they serving spam ads right after.  Here’s some of the things I think they should be doing:

• Use free social media: Twitter, FriendFeed, FB fan pages, Jaiku, Pownce, Message Boards, Discussion Forums, make a funny video on Youtube, create a channel on 12seconds - there’s all kinds of social media and services with which to create community and market yourself.  The key here is to be active in the community, spend time there, follow people, listen to what they say, and make sure they know you’re a real person, not a spam bot.  Then ask them questions.  What do you think of this idea?  Do you know anyone who likes rock climbing?  Get some real market data, and recruit some real Beta testers.
• Partner up with other people - do a little Business Development.  Reach out to the admins at rock climbing forums and retailers - tell them you want to trade some ad space and partner up.  You’re creating a rock climbing social network.  They sell gear to rock climbers (or provide a locale for them to gather and share thoughts.)  It’s a good fit and a win-win situation.
• Contact University groups - every college campus in America has a rock climbing club, rock wall, rock gym, etc.  Every one of those groups has young people who like to climb, every one of which uses the internet on a daily basis.  That’s your target audience.  Recruit them.  Buy them pizza (instead of FB ads) and recruit there.

This is the news announcement they’ve issued, and there’s an excerpt below.  Crankjam is a mass producer of niche social networks based in Columbia, South Carolina.  Lifefitter in turn seems to be a product of another “incubator” called LoudDoor, also based in South Carolina.  Now, the Lifefitter guys seem to sort of “get it.”  They have a blog.  And they’re even writing some posts that express expertise and understanding of their space.  Kudos, that’s sincerely excellent.  They are creating a bunch of niched social networks, online communities for the outdoor (and technologically) minded.  Cool.  Personally I think Ning makes more sense, where existing communities can form their own online social network, but there’s a place for this product too.  It’s even a cool idea.

However, this spammy approach is creepy, up and down. It’s disconcerting.  If I had to give this a numeric rating, on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d call it a 2.  And that’s without ever getting a chance to see the product itself.  Purely based on the experience of finding and signing up for the Beta, I am truly uncomfortable.

New

Lifefitter to release CrankJam, a social network for rock climbers, in private beta.

Columbia, SC: Today, Lifefitter Networks announced CrankJam, a new social network dedicated to the rock climbing community. The site is accepting requests for invitations to the beta program and will be released in private beta within the next 45 days.

“Rock climbing is such an intense sport, it takes a lot of guts to go out and climb all over the world,” said General Manager Bobby Redfern.

On a scale of 1 to 10, these sites are dope (if you’re a tech-weenie on a budget.)

As most of my friends know, I am a gear queer.  I like outdoor stuff.

I wrote a post a few months ago about Steepandcheap, a website for buying cool outdoor gear at low-low prices (insert tv-promo voice here.)  I wanted to put a quick post about a couple of related websites that are also cool, and have more specific foci:

Chainlove: for all your biking needs (at a discount)

Tramdock: If you are into backcountry skiing (for reduced prices)

Whiskey Militia: If you’re a skate-punk on a budget, this site is for you

I’ve been digging on all of these sites, and found good deals everywhere.  In spite of my initial concerns about Steepandcheap, I officially now a fan.  Dig it y’all, these sites are great.

If I were forced to give a numeric rating, I would call each of these a 8 out of 10.

On a scale of 1to10 this knife was meh.

I bought another item off of Steep and Cheap.  It was a SOG Flash II knife.  To be truthful, I don’t love it.  I don’t hate it either, but I am not blown away.

I have always had a very high opinion of SOG knives.  They make well regarded tactical and combat knives, and insist upon a high level of quality control and excellent materials.  I think that for a normal folder, or a fixed-blade knife, I might have a better opinion.  But this knife has a different function.

The Flash II uses SOG Assisted Technology, an internal mechanism that assists in opening the knife quickly. Basically, once you start to open the knife (using the thumb stud on the blade), internal springs assist in flinging the blade open.  You could consider it a semi-automatic knife.  While this is kind of cool, I am honestly not that fussed about it after using it.

My issue with this knife is that I feel like there’s lots to go wrong.  It has a safety, which seems superfluous to me.  The knife never seems to accidentally open in your pocket, and there is an internal mechanical “something” that can become gummed up and/or go wrong.    And the unlock mechanism (after you’ve locked the blade open) is a slider switch.  I found it overly difficult to use unlock mechanism right out of the box.  Now that it’s had a little bit of use, it moves more easily.  I’m concerned that it may become too loose over time, rendering it less effective.  I really can’t fault SOG for something that might happen though.  However, because this is a sliding switch, I AM concerned that gunk (mud, slime, pocket lint, you name it) could easily get embedded in the mechanism and foul it.

Also, I find that this knife lacks symmetry.  It has a curve for the fore and middle fingers, but I think the base of the scales narrow too much.  This is a subjective topic, but I don’t love the ergonomics or the design of the scales.

One positive thing I WILL say about this knife is the weight.  It’s quite light, under 2 and a half ounces, and it’s barely noticeable in your pocket.  When I am using a knife, I actually prefer it to have a little bit of heft, so in terms of usability the lightweight is sub-optimal (IMHO.)  However, in terms of every day carry, it’s sometimes nice to have a lighter weight blade in your pocket.  This is especially true as I frequently ride my bike to work, and I always carry a blade with me, regardless of where I’m going.  It’s a benefit to have light weight tool in your pocket when your thighs are pumping up and down.

Let me be clear.  I don’t hate this knife.  But I don’t love it either.  If pressed, I would probably give it a 4 out of 10, but I’m pretty satisfied with “meh.”  If you want to purchase one, and you don’t catch it on SteepandCheap, you can buy it from SOG for full retail.  Or you can check out The Blade Shop.  As of this post, they’re selling it at $41.00, down from the full retail price of $72.

Here’s a brief video review I made on 12seconds.tv:

SOG Flash II Knife - not that fussed on 12seconds.tv

On a scale from 1 to 10, I am mildly impressed.  I just saw that Chrome was live and available for download, so I gave it a test run.  

I’m going to keep this pretty short, as Walt Mossberg already did a wonderful review of Chrome for the Wall Street Journal, but I’d like to share my initial impressions.  On first blush, the new Google web browser, Chrome, is pretty plain jain.  They’ve kept the user interface wonderfully simple, which is very much in keeping with the Google heritage (remember the very first Google search page?  Actually, it doesn’t look all that different now, does it?)

Like Firefox, Safari, and (now) even the venerable Internet Explorer, Chrome uses tabbed browsing.   They’ve tried a new mechanism wherein tabs that are opened from links on a single page all remain grouped together, which is a nice feature.  Also, when a new tab is opened, rather than a blank page, Chrome offers thumbnailed versions of websites you’ve visited previously, trying to anticipate where you want to go.  It’s a neat feature, sort of like a widgetized view with non-functional widgets cum bookmarks.  

In terms of performance, the browser seems stable enough.  If I have the time and the wherewithal, I may try to do some benchmarks tests on memory leakage.  My favorite browser by far (almost exclusively) is Firefox, but it leaks like a sonofabitch, and if too many tabs are open for too long, I find that it starts using many MB’s of RAM.   As you can see from this screenshot of my task manager, Firefox is already using over 300,000K, and that’s after being open for about 30 seconds.  Interestingly, Chrome seems to be also using many kilobytes of memory, but it’s split into numerous different processes.  Someone a lot smarter than me needs to explain that, but my (distinctly ignorant and amateurish) guess would be that by splitting the usage among a variety of processes, it’s less likely that a machine will choke on a single point.   I believe each instance represents a different tab, which explains the ability to set individual tabs as “mini applications” that can stand alone in your start menu.  I’ve not yet played with that feature, but it sounds cool, and reminds me of Fluid for Safari (on OSX Leopard.) 

A little bit of brief blog searching (courtesy of Google) shows that other people have explored this issue as well.  Pdileepa wrote a neat post and mentioned a cool “just for nerds feature” available by hitting shift+ESC. Newsvine explored the memory use as well in their post reviewing the new browser.  Comment from the more educated masses are very welcome. 

In theory, Chrome is supposed to offer a Java-friendly browsing experience (Java script is a software development language, popular for building modern websites.)  Google is apparently looking to the future when the browser is a true operating system, and cloud computing can compete effectively with a traditional OS like Windows, OSX, Ubuntu, and others.   From what I’ve read these Javaphilic benefits are largely invisible at the moment, for the vast majority of websites currently extant.   But they’re the wave of the future…

However, even for the time being Chrome is a useful addition to the web browising space.  I’m interested to see how my opinion shapes over time, and to see how Chrome performs under more stringent tests.  But as I said, I’m mildly impressed.  If I were forced to give a numeric rating, I’d call Chrome a 7 out of 10.