As quick post about running, the Detroit Marathon, and the New York Marathon.

I have been a distance runner since high school, competing in everything from the Firecracker Mile to the Boston Marathon, and am one of those strange people who actually finds it enjoyable.  I don’t run for some greater purpose other than I enjoy running long distances and it allows me to enjoy the outdoors relatively unencumbered by others.  Sure, it helps to keep the weight off and led to me meeting my wife at the University of Michigan’s Running Club, but I honestly look forward to running because it feels natural and, not to sound like a dork, gives me an opportunity to listen to podcasts from ESPN, Adam Carolla, and NPR.  Plus, it allows me to explore places and cities that would either be difficult or not nearly enjoyable by some other means (for example, traveling along the Hudson River in Manhattan to Central Park would be a rather boring and painful drive).

Though I had previously sworn off marathons since law school (it was hard to put in the necessary training, I’m getting a little older, other commitments, etc.), I decided to give the Detroit Marathon a try.  I figured it would be nice to compete in the local race, and my wife raved about running it back in college.  It also gave me an opportunity to explore Detroit a bit, to see some of its sights and landmarks that I never gave much thought to before.

Well, I am happy to say that it was a great choice of a race, save for the weather.  Starting temperature was a clip below 30 degrees, and only barely warmed up by the end.  Of course, that is to be expected given the fact the race started at 7 a.m., but it was still a shock given how mild temperatures had been for most of the month leading up to the race.  That said, it was a nice run, one that featured racers crossing over the Ambassador Bridge to Canada and then back underwater for a mile via the Windsor Tunnel.  I was able to run through pockets of renewal in the city such as Greektown, Corktown, and Indian Village, as well as run around Belle Isle Park, an island park designed by Frederick Olmsted, who also designed Central Park in New York City.  It was also nice to finish along the Riverwalk, a new addition to the city and one that portends more revitalization along the river.

Unfortunately, the race was marred by the deaths of three runners competing in the half-marathon.  The men ranged in age from 26 to 65, and all died within 16 minutes of each other toward the end of the race.  While deaths at marathons are not completely uncommon (remember, the original marathon runner Pheidippides supposedly collapsed and died at the end of his run) they also are rarely predictable and are usually tied to poor training, latent physical issues such as heart problems (as was the case with Ryan Shay), or environmental variables such as extreme heat or dehydration/hyponatremia.  But temperatures throughout the race were pretty mild; if anything, it was a little colder than I expected given the time of year.  It also sounds like all the men were in good physical shape and certainly prepared for the rigors of the half-marathon, so poor health/training seems unlikely.  That only leads latent physical maladies, which may ultimately prove to be the root cause though it will still take weeks for autopsy results to confirm this.  Irrespective of the cause, though, my heart goes out to the families of these runners, and you hope they are given closure soon.

As for how this will affect marathons (and more importantly, participation) going forward, I doubt there will be even a slight reduction simply because of the rarity of such deaths occurring.  The chances of a death at a marathon varies between 1-in-50,000 to 1-in-75,000, and with more volunteers and medical staff available, my guess is that this ratio will continue to improve.  Furthermore, marathons remain a great incentive for those in an increasingly-sedentary society to push themselves to remain healthy and fit, or at least accomplish a task that remains so daunting and insurmountable.

My one concern, though, is that people are starting to view the marathon more as a life accomplishment or an outlet for charity and less for what it really is – a grueling, physically demanding race that requires months of proper physical and emotional training.  I’ve noticed this trend in some of the high-profile races I have competed in, such as the Chicago Marathon and the New York Half-Marathon.  There seems to be a significant number of runners who are competing in these races because they feel out of shape, or want to support some worth charity, and figure they can train around their busy lives and show and at least finish, even if it takes 5+ hours.  While I am not one to question anyone’s motives to compete in a race, I do question the logic behind tackling such an event when there are 5Ks and 10Ks with similar charitable connections and less daunting distances.

The New York Times recently had an article highlighting this phenomenon of the “plodders”, noting that over 20% of participants in the New York Marathon finish over 5 hours.  The crux of the article is that whereas marathons used to be viewed as events only for elite or near-elite runners, it has become a more appealing event for runners of all ages and abilities, resulting in more entrants but slower overall times.  This has angered a subset of the marathon culture, who charge that is a “joke to run a marathon by walking every other mile or by finishing in six, seven, eight hours,” and wonder if the aura of completing the race has been tarnished by racers finishing 2-3 hours behind even moderately-paced runners.  These slower runners counter that their level of running does not affect the results of others, and that finishing the race is just as important to the individual irrespective of his or her time.  They also argue that most marathons rely on the entrance fees of the slower runners to keep pace with rising costs associated with running such an event, and that as paying entrants they should be able to finish the race given a reasonable amount of time.

On the surface, it seems that the “plodders” have it right – unless they are impeding the progress of the faster runners, it should be irrelevant how long it takes them to finish the race.  Runner A taking 4 hours to finish does not “cheapen” Runner B’s 2:55 finish, just like a 3:10 time does not lessen the thrill of accomplishment and victory that comes from winning a race in 2:10.  Personally, I have less of an issue with slow runners who train properly as slow runners who are not prepared to the demands of the race.  If you train properly for the race and that equates to a 5-hour marathon, then so be it and I wish you the best.  It doesn’t affect my run, and anything that drives people to push their boundaries safely and strive for such an accomplishment should be promoted.

I do take issue, though, with those who compete in marathons without adequate training beforehand.  These people are placing their health at risk, and both in the short term as well as the long term.  After completing Detroit this year, I could barely get up and down the stairs at my parents’ house, and for the rest of the week felt a burning sensation in my ankles and thighs when I did even innocuous movements such as rise from the couch or walk down a hill.  It was painful, and I had been training for months, had proper running equipment, and have competed in races like this before.  My guess is that less-prepared individuals experienced at least as much pain as I did following their marathons, and probably competed in less-than-optimal equipment.  Furthermore, I have established a workable running form that has (so far) protected me from any major injuries, and it is a form that took years to forge over thousands of miles.  Even if you run on a treadmill for 4-5 miles every few days, you likely have not developed a form that can withstand the pounding your body will take while competing in a marathon, and that improper form can lead to back, leg, and tendon injuries that can be debilitating.  And while the counter-argument is that these runners will be running at a slower, more manageable pace, it doesn’t take into account the fact that they will still be on their feet and moving for the bulk of 5-6 hours while exposed to the elements.  The distance remains the same for everyone, and 26.2 miles is tough irrespective of whether it takes you 3 hours or 6 hours to finish it.  Finally, every marathon runner has a (slightly) heightened risk of heart damage/injury while competing, and novices run an even higher risk of potential injury if they already suffer from decreased fitness or medical condition.

Ultimately, though, I would encourage anyone interested in running a marathon to consider the physical and emotional tolls it entails and, if they feel up to the challenge, to compete in one at least once in his or her life.  There may be no greater feeling of accomplishment than crossing the finish line and realizing what you have accomplished and how that sense of accomplishment will always be yours.  I only caution that if you do not believe you can put in the time and effort necessary to properly prepare, perhaps focus on some other event and slowly build your way up to a marathon.  As the saying goes, “life is not a sprint; it’s a marathon.”

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Interesting article about joining a handheld WiFi unit with an iPod Touch (and web-based services such as Skype)to create a reasonable approximation of an iPhone (or similar smartphone).  AT&T’s network issues are well-chronicled, so the potential is there for a unique solution such as this to really take hold.  I remember people talking about a WiFi-based phone early on during the development of the gPhone, and with the ubiquity of public and/or private WiFi in most cities, I wouldn’t be surprised if a device maker takes a shot at making this proof-of-concept a consumer product.

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I finally got around to reading this interesting book review by Malcolm Gladwell.  He was reviewing Chris Anderson’s Free:  The Future of Radical Pricing, a book that professes that “[i]n the digital realm you can try to keep Free at bay with laws and locks, but eventually the force of economic gravity will win.”  Gladwell countered this assertion with the cogent observation that making the end product “free” does not mean that cost of the entire creation process also goes to zero – “that if you change the fuel you change the whole system.”

I respect Anderson’s ideas and actually find his writing rather engaging – I read The Long Tail some time ago and thought it was a really interesting take on the power of digital technology – it can reach the hyper-niche markets in a way that conventional distribution and sales simply could not.  That said, I agree with Gladwell that simply because the market “wants” something to be free does not mean that it should or that such a distribution model works in the long term.

The genesis of this movement, at least to most people, occurred with the advent of Napster (and its progeny), which made it possible to download whole catalogs of artists in minutes.  Suddenly, highly-anticipated new releases could be heard streaming from earbuds weeks before the album officially hits the shelves, and sales of albums plummetted even while overall consumption rises.  And that is not to say that making music available over such channels is either always right or always wrong – thousands of musicians and bands have been able to reach audiences that would otherwise have been inaccessible had it not been for file-sharing services and sites.  It is fair to say that file-sharing technologies (along with streaming audio sites such as myspace, mp3.com, pandora, etc.) have ushered in a new era of diversity in music, allowing artists and listeners to connect in ways that were impossible even a decade ago.

But at the same time, just because the distribution of music has become essentially free does not mean that all costs associated with its discovery and production has also gone to zero.  You still need sound technicians (even with software like Apple’s Garage Band helping the DIY artist), talent agents, bookers, etc. to facilitate the process to some degree, if for no other reason than the fact that not all musicians will have the requisite knowledge, experience, passion, and wherewithal to successfully nurture their careers in the ways necessary to be successful.

People tend to forget, as I surely was years ago, is that people usually do not produce high-quality material altruistically.  Sure, people may release some program, music, or book for free, but usually they have ulterior motives beyond the common good, whether it be to increase their visibility, recruit new customers/followers, or obtain suggestions and support for future releases.  For “undiscovered” musicians, release material for free helps to reach new audiences, usually with the expectation that one day this audience will pay for the band’s products.  For established artists such as Radiohead and Trent Reznor, who have released full albums for free over the Internet, their moves were likely precipitated in part show their displeasure for the music industry and its practices.  At the same time, though, these are best-selling artists with established and dedicated fan bases, and one could argue it is a bit disingenuous to call for changes in an industry that made them household names and millionaires to boot.  And even if musicians began en masse to distribute their music for free, it’s not as if they never try to generate profits – they still charge (sometimes outrageously high prices) for concerts, merchandise, appearance fees, etc.  They still want to be compensated for their efforts – they may just be willing to offer some more free content to drum up business.

That is why I’m not sure this notion of “free” culture will ever take off, as people will always want to be compensated for their services.  That’s why I have always found arguments for the sharing of commercial music, software, and videos disingenuous – I doubt many proponents would feel the same way if the products of their hard work were taken and used by thousands without any compensation.  For some reason, though, downloading a copy of Windows 7 is not regarded as “stealing” because Microsoft is a massive corporation that is taking advantage of its user base, yet if someone were to illegally download a copy of their employer’s product, they would be up in arms.  Even open source developers, in some way or another, tend to be compensated for their work, whether it be through actual employment with an open source developing studio, outside employment that grants them the ability to volunteer their time for these projects after hours, or by providing paid support for their products (as an example, the last company I worked for charged practically nothing for our software, but made most of their money on subsequent service and installation contracts).

So I guess my point is that while I believe digital technology will undoubtedly help to make products more widely available and at lower prices, I’m doubt that any conventional product will ever be truly “free”, at least in the way most people interpret that word.  There simply are too many stages, too many infrastructure costs, to make that possible on a large scale.  That does not mean people should not continue to push the technological envelope and develop more efficient means of production and distribution – it just means that we should also expect to still have to fund it from time to time.

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Since this is my first (I hope of many) posts, I want to start off with a little longer of a post.  I will try to update this blog every day or two, depending on what happens in the world as well as my own ideas.

So I attended a monthly meetup/showcase for small technology companies in New York City earlier this week, and overall I thought it was rather interesting.  Perhaps this shows my own ignorance, but I never thought of NY as a major hotbed of computer/internet technology – NYC has always been so closely identified with Wall St. and finance that I never expected it to have a thriving start-up environment.  So it was nice to attend a meeting with 600+ small-time inventors and start-up veterans, to see some of their ideas on shaping the future of technology both locally and across the globe.

Now, there were two trends that I noticed rather quickly in the technologies showcased.  One was a focus on management or compartmentalizing of content on the web; the other was a focus on making portable “apps” (particularly the iPhone) that run in conjunction with a web-based service or utility.  Up front, I recognize that one meeting does not a trend make, but I think it is safe to say that these themes are prevalent across consumer-side computer technology, especially as the tools to create and utilize these technologies have become more accessible to the everyday user.  So here’s my take:

Portable Apps – Great for Apple, but what about everyone else?

It goes without saying that Apple has created industry-standard products across two technologies that most people would claim to not be able to live without:  mp3 players and smartphones.  As someone who once openly scoffed the notion that people would pay $200 to carry around hundreds of songs they would never listen to, the iPod has proven to be one of the defining (and best selling) products of my generation.  It combined a simplistic interface with a bevy of features that dwarfed those found in most other mp3 devices.  Similarly, the iPhone elevated the smartphone market from a bastion dominated by corporate and business users to one open to millions.  Heck, on an average train ride to work I rarely see fewer than 5-10 people fiddling with their iPhones at any given time, whether it be listening to music, playing games, browsing the web, or even reading a digital book.  And with competing smartphones likes the Palm Pre and the gPhone pushing their own unique services and OSes, it looks like the smartphone arena will remain a hot area for innovation in the near future.

So why the ominous title?  Apple is selling iPhones at a record pace, and coupled with the WiFi-enabled iTouch, the Apple Store has already sold over 1 Billion applications since the iPhones launch, with over 65,000 official applications available.  And some of these applications have been truly visionary.  Plus, Apple made its SDK publicly available early on, and has facilitated a thriving subculture of small-scale designers that have helped to push the iPhone in directions people never thought possible.  So what’s my beef with the iPhone?

With the release of the SDK and the accompanying emulators and tools, Apple made it immensely simple for designers to create applications for the iPhone.  Coupled with a growing marketplace and a user-friendly distribution system (the Apple Store/iTunes), creating applications for the iPhone is a relatively cheap and easy way for smaller companies and programmers to either (1) enter the retail software market, or (2) expand an existing product (usually web-based) to handheld devices.  And for some designers and products, this has been a godsend – look no further than the myriad of programs that take advantage of the iPhone’s built-in GPS to help users locate nearby restaurants, map out bus routes, and meet others for dates and social events.

But the problem is that this ease of design and monetization potential is so alluring that applications are being designed with technology first, utility second.  In other words, people are creating applications for the iPhone before they ascertain whether or not there is any market for it.  Now, I understand that the Apple Store has never been a paragon of utility – witness the  thriving market for fart-based apps – but it seems that people are so seduced by the possibilities that the iPhone represents that they rush to design a product before they spend some time determining whether or not it will actually enhance or augment services they provide or are already out in the market.  In fact, the only iPhone app I saw at the meetup that I thought was useful was from Comixology, which allowed the user to not only view comic books on the iPhone (with great detail and without sacrificing the original layout) but also order upcoming releases and locate nearby brick-and-mortar stores.  There, the market was clearly defined, the application added a new dimension to an existing service, and a previously-underserved niche (i.e. comic book enthusiasts who want read their books on the go without sacrificing image and layout quality) was given a viable tool.

True, sometimes creating the technology first is the easiest way to ascertain where the market is, but I still wonder if companies and programmers would be better served spending a few more days on identifying real needs before jumping into design and testing.  One of the few rules of business I know is that if you have to explain the utility of your product to your intended market, you are either a visionary or your product is superfluous.

Content Aggregation – Monetizing “Free”

The other key theme I’ve noticed is this push toward monetization of content management/aggregation, particularly trying to build a business model out of harnessing all the free content that exists on the Internet.  On its face, this seems like a great idea – the content (blogs, podcasts, websites, videos, etc.) is immense, niche-specific, and effectively free, but can be difficult to locate and compartmentalize into digestible chunks.  But if you can find a way to parse those chunks and deliver them to individuals efficiently and with just the right amount of “uniqueness”, then you should be able to transform that utility into financial gain.  In effect, this is how the yellow pages and the newspaper classifieds made money in the past, and how Craigslist is accomplishing even better returns on the Internet.   But the defining characteristic of the yellows pages, classifieds, eBays, and Craigslists of the world – namely, trafficking in  “tangible” information – is what also hurts parties trying to profit from the free content available on the Internet.

“Tangible” information, as defined here, represents actual goods, services, or proprietary information.  The reason people post classified ads with newspapers or on Craigslist is because the ad represents something they are trying to sell/monetize, whether it be a refrigerator, car detailing, or apartment rentals. Similarly, the ad service providers were selling “tangible” information in the form of a network of potential buyers; a market that would likely be unavailable to the sellers otherwise.  So when the two sides met, the transfer of “tangible” information – the seller’s ad (and the underlying good) on one side, the buyer’s network of potential buyers on the other – could be easily monetized, typically in the form of a standard fee for the post.  This relationship works because it goes to the root of the bargained-for exchange that has been a hallmark of markets since the beginning of time – each side gives up something in order to receive something back, and this “something” was usually created explicitly for this bartering.  So when someone creates an ad on Craigslist to sell a toaster, the purpose of the ad is to, well, sell a toaster, and thus at its core a financial transaction.

Now consider the vast majority of the content found on the Internet.  Some of it is undoubtedly created for commercial purposes, but the vast majority of it (especially with respect to blogs and youtube-style videos) is created, at best, to convey information and, at worst, just for personal enjoyment.  People create websites and blog because it allows them to speak their mind, to seek out responses from others, or to simply express themselves in a new medium.  The content found on those sites is (usually) free and publicly accessible, and was probably not created with an eye on quick monetization.  Even companies and individuals that create sites to complement tangible goods and services are usually not charging for the information found on the sites; they hope that once you have a nibble of this free content, you will be willing to pay for more/better/”real” content beyond the Web.

That is why I am not sure content aggregation/management will ever turn into a viable business model on the Internet, or at least reach the level that companies hope it will.  Sites and services like digg, reddit, and del.icio.us are great tools to aggregate information, but that information carries little to no financial value.  This may be more perception than reality, but those sites feel more like community-based search engines than information-gathering services that users would be willing to pay for – you could find most of these sites/articles/videos if you spent enough time searching.  True, you save this time by visiting these aggregators instead of searching alone, but I’m not sure people are willing to pay much for those savings.  Sure, it’s great to find that interesting article about Linux’s increasing desktop marketshare on the front page of Digg, but the possibility of NOT finding that article is probably not enough to drive people to pay Digg for that service.

Plus, because the vast majority of these sites rely on the “community” to fuel the management and aggregation of the content, identifying where the proprietary services end and the “free” community begins can be a murky line.  If all the site provides is a forum for people to post information and links they find on their own, what separates that site from the thousands of other sites, message boards, etc. that are also free?  Not having an answer to that question, or at least one that justifies placing a price tag on that service, is why I doubt many of these sites will become profitable in the near future.  And of course, let’s not forget the inherent bias against paying for anything on the Internet – if people are unwilling to pay for clearly commercial products such as music, movies, and software, what are the chances that the community is going to shell out money for effectively “free” goods such as blogs and videos?

One of the only ways I see sites becoming profitable in the content management/aggregation field is if they provide unique services in finding the free content.  That’s why I think a site like Hunch.com has a chance.  In order to find an answer to a query, the site does not simply list pages upon pages of results based on keywords.  It asks a series of follow-up questions and, based on those results, drills down deeper into a data set and, hopefully, comes to a shortened list of hyper-relevant results.  Its decision tree design makes it “fun” to look up information, and provided the results are consistently relevant, I think that some people may be willing to pay for this service because the utility in finding precise answers is valuable.  It probably will not become the next Google, but it has a chance to serve niches in a meaningful way.

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