I’m impressed by the deliberate, public nature of the changes, and the aesthetic is fine, if not as iconic as yellow and green.

One design quibble: I find the lowercasing of “news” and “download.com” to be affected, especially given that text references continue to capitalize, but whatever. But I’m grateful the unnecessary reflection on the sub-brands of CNET News and Download.com was dropped from the design. News uses the CNET favicon, as it has forever. I noticed that Download.com got to keep its favicon, a slightly smaller version of this:

One navigation quibble: the tour pop-up should have its own visible, linkable URL. It’s found at http://www.cnet.com/html/cnet/tour/tour1.html. Works well on its own, without need for scrolling.

I am still waiting, however, for the change of News.com to its broader CBS usage. That team must still be hard at work, not yet enjoying pizza and beer.

My previous comments hold. The body of the home page looks fine, with no complaints. However, I find the reflection in the sub-brands of “News” and “Download.com” quite distracting, and hard to read. The Web 2.0 reflection will be very dated in the near future, too.

Download.com new logo design

CNET News new logo design…without the .com

Larger question highlighted by these sub-brand treatments: how long until CBS Interactive puts the domain news.com in the service of general news?

Today’s preview includes a .com for the download design, but it’s notably absent for news. Also, www.news.com redirects to news.cnet.com now. For too long, news.com redirected to the never-beloved news.com.com (long story…not now). For a few brief weeks earlier this year, before the CBS deal, the tech news site reclaimed its original 1996 home at www.news.com. It was quickly switched over to news.cnet.com. The pendulum of parent brands vs. individual brands swings back and forth at CNET, but it’s clear this time news.com is being prepped for bigger things.

This change makes sense, since News.com is just too tempting a domain name to limit to tech news, especially given the broader portfolio of the new CBS Interactive. But stop dribbling this change out. Get the team working on the new News.com in higher gear before these design changes dampen the, well, news.

My comments are as a fan and former employee, but no inside information.

CNET’s decision to announce a coming redesign ahead of time is admirable. It shows a new respect for how disruptive change can be to an existing audience.

Current CNET logo, in context

New CNET logo, in context (proposed)

I have a few comments, but IANAD (I am not a designer).

• New logo drops the pipe ( | ) between the letters c and n: +1
  About time! Few things confused the brand more than that pipe.
• Sticking with all lower-case letters in logo, as cnet: -1
  I appreciate the nod to the original (and current) logo, but grab the chance to change to all caps, CNET, like every single text reference in the last several years.
• Logo is updated, making the red ball more obviously a ball: +1
  I wasn’t sure about this change, but when I went back to compare, I realized how flat and dated the existing red ball logo looks… and the glow behind the current red ball isn’t fantastic.
• Color scheme drops yellow and green: -1
  Yellow and green are signature, just like the red ball. Both colors have been toned down, appropriately, over the years. Dropping them altogether? Well, if it weren’t in favor of a color scheme straight out of Axe body care products, I’d probably find it more acceptable.
• Header is taller: -1
  Only reason is to fit a leaderboard advertisement. That’s the business, of course, but… sigh.

The best news? These are just opinions about the skin. That matters, but the content inside the skin still decides whether I read or not. And I continue to, mostly via the News.com RSS feeds (choose one) and occasional email newsletters (subscribe).

Note: as someone who’s led previous site redesigns at CNET, I’m not throwing stones from afar. I can only imagine the internal discussions. I hope the transition goes well, whether with the demonstrated changes or some additional nips and tucks.

I pushed and prodded to build this web-based reader service, and poured a lot of energy into its creation. But you can’t change some things, and it’s smart of CNET to shut this down gracefully and move on.

See all my posts on this topic. It was fun to let it leak out nearly two years ago.

I’ll admit that I’ve been using NetNewsWire exclusively and happily ever since I left CNET.

I’ve read much Wallace Stegner, but not his Discovery! The Search for Arabian Oil (scroll to the bottom). A future read, certainly.

I don’t need Adventures in $40 eyeglasses right now, but for the future…

Haven’t watched The Kingdom, but the opening credits sequence is nifty. (via)

The best 10 books of the year? So says The New York Times in its 2007 list. Despite my reading, I never even came close to one of this group, and had only heard of two.

I don’t pour myself into Twitter, but I recognize that’s its very open-endedness is a strength. What caught my eye about this analysis was simply its method: pictures and diagrams, in lieu of many words. My education continues.

Who has time to read Draft Business Model Innovation Manual (beta version)? Not me, and I haven’t even downloaded the PDF, but I love the audacity of someone creating a manual for innovation. Clayton Christensen has described innovation and its consequences on businesses wonderfully. But a “manual” implies prescription, which is much, much harder.

Among the least surprising headlines of the year, from December 4, 2007: “Hybrid Vehicle Owners are Wealthy, Active, Educated and Overwhelmingly Democratic, According to Scarborough Research” (PDF available from press page)

Domains are interesting to me. I have seven of my own, though I only use one. DomainTools introduced “Registrant Search,” with an offer of a free self-search. Yup…found them all. But I don’t try and hide.

I’m a sucker for things like this: “human history in 60 seconds.

Joe Jackson is starting another tour and will be in Redwood City in May 2008.

• British history timeline, via Infosthetics.
• There are so many things I want to improve about this blog. First and foremost would be actually posting to it! But other cleanup items might include stats via a simple plug-in, or applying a new theme.
• Netflix guilt was sent by the wife. Northfork is only the most recent example of the problem.
• When I read that “Only Five Percent of Innovative Web Users Access Internet on Mobile Device” (study reported on back in late March), I feel so…innovative. Actually, I just am reminded that I’m a geek. My internet use on my Treo 650 is still mostly just filling time.
  

  Users perform an average of 3.3 online activities on their mobile device versus 13.4 activities on their laptop/desktop, reinforcing the fact that online activities have yet to migrate into the pockets of broadband users.

  Also, I pay a flat fee for Internet access, but I pay extra for SMS, so I lean towards email and the web for economic reasons, too.

• A more recent report tells us that “Americans Spend Half of Their Spare Time Online.” That calculation is based on this sad fact: “broadband users spend an hour and 40 minutes (48% of their spare time) online in a typical weekday.” Yes, there are just over 3 hours of spare time per weekday. (Is that with or without kids?) I wonder how much sleep is allowed for in that typical weekday? Here’s the source, but the report is not a free product, so no more details.
• I’m not really convinced here, but I enjoyed reading Platform Architect as a Network-centric Strategy all the same.
• Via Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools, I learned about Sheldon Brown’s Online Cycling Encyclopedia. I don’t do much of my own real work on my bicycles, but if I found time and inclination, good to have the resource. Do I need a computer in the garage, though?
• Jeff Jarvis throws some ideas about the web “after the page,” where he really means home page. Maybe the Guardian column, edited down, was more cohesive. Otherwise, I didn’t hear anything new here. But I suppose it takes repetition for the message to sink in.
• A Washington Post article about How the Pentagon Got Its Shape is an excerpt from a book coming soon. I found the article on Slashdot; I don’t think I need the book. But the article outlines the way things moved quickly in a Washington on the edge of a formal commitment to World War II. (Nice Jungle Book allusion, too.)
• Via Virtual Economics, a reminder that demographics are destiny, in Herb Meyer’s speech “A Global Intelligence Briefing For CEOs,” given in February, 2006. Meyer is unknown to me, but the speech transcript credits him thusly: “Herb Meyer served during the Reagan administration as special assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence and Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council.” Regardless, short statements like this remind me of an Atlantic article.
  

  In Japan, the birthrate is 1.3. As a result, Japan will lose up to 60 million people over the next 30 years. Because Japan has a very different society than Europe, they refuse to import workers. Instead, they are just shutting down. Japan has already closed 2000 schools, and is closing them down at the rate of 300 per year.

  300 per year!
  While the general tenor of the article leans towards ominous, there is this tidbit near the end.
  

  There is no better place in the world to be in business and raise children. The U. S. is by far the best place to have an idea, form a business and put it into the marketplace. We take it for granted, but it isn’t as available in other countries of the world.

  Hmmm…life is pretty good here, despite the anxiety over how fast change occurs, and how little we seem able to predict. The whole speech is worth reading. The themes aren’t new, but the joint impact causes thinking. And that’s not bad.

• Paul Vixie on DNS Complexity leaves me wondering…what’s the point? We’re told it’s a problem, but not a problem. There are no prescriptions, just descriptions, at different levels of granularity. I’m interested in DNS now, even if I’m not an engineer… and I just didn’t understand what I was supposed to learn or think after reading this. Frustrating.
• Scott Karp shares that “CNN and Wall Street Journal Embrace Aggregation Of Third-Party Content” and I say… so? It’s not playing offense, it’s playing defense. I have experience leading these efforts at CNET in the past: July, 2004 or February, 2005. They were well-intentioned efforts, but never broke through for lack of commitment. Media organizations which operate on the (admirable) principle that their own content (thinking/reporting/writing/opinion) is worth other people’s time and money are not committed (business-wise or personally) to other people’s content. Yes, technology has made complementing your own content with other sources even easier (read: cheaper) in the last year or two. But it’s not a sea-change; it’s a few more fingers in the dike.

Like so many around the country (especially in the small-world of the San Francisco Internet industry), I followed the story of the Kim family over the last week. After the unexpected lift in spirits when the family was found, it was especially disheartening to get the bad news yesterday afternoon.

So, we doubled down. They found the family, we said to each other. Maybe they’ll find the dad too. [C.W. Nevius, SFGate]

I worked at CNET for five years, until May 2006, so my thoughts are with my friends and colleagues there now. I didn’t know James very well. But he was responsive and helpful the one time I made a personal request for his expertise. Every comment and report I’ve seen demonstrates that this was the norm.

I ache for those two children.

The current (old) camera

The camera I’m replacing is a Canon PowerShot S400 Digital Elph, purchased in the summer of 2003. Why do I need a new camera? Occasionally, the images are coming out skewed in strange ways, and won’t even transfer to the computer via iPhoto. I wondered if it was the memory card, but wandering by a camera store (they still exist!) in Fanueil Hall, in Boston, I was told that the CMOS chip is probably shot. I’m willing to believe that diagnosis, in part because the slow shutter speed of this camera irks me, and has for almost as long as I’ve had the camera. The size and megapixels and controls are all pretty sharp…but taking pictures of moving children is well nigh impossible.

The requirements

My requirements are simple enough, I hope:

• small enough to fit in the pocket
• at least 4 megapixels (but I don’t need more)
• shutter speed that can catch up with the under-10 crowd.

I’m not terribly picky about zoom levels, etc., and I’ll pay a reasonable price, though I won’t pass up a deal.

The selection process, in laborious detail

Start at CNET.com.

Search for “fast shutter speed”

Looking at the tiny thumbnails in the search results, the first few cameras don’t look small enough (they have ergonomic handles, which means they won’t fit in the pocket). So, I tried the second one which looked small, the Sony Cyber Shot DSC-T9.

Note: the first camera which looked small, the Olympus Stylus 710 has a disappointing summary.

Despite the attraction of a weather-resistant body, the Olympus Stylus 710 falls short with disappointing performance and overprocessed images.

I went on to read the full review of the T9. The “nut graph” is buried a bit:

Though the Sony Cyber Shot DSC-T9 is far from perfect, it’s darn good for an ultracompact snapshot camera.

Right below that sentence is a chart, which I had to read carefully to understand, but shows that the DSC-T9 has a shutter speed of 0.3 seconds.

I noticed that the user ratings is 8.7, even higher than the CNET Editors’ rating of 7.6. Since user ratings are often lower than CNET Editors’ ratings (in my anecdotal experience, anyway), that’s a good sign.

I flipped over to the Compare tab, to see which other cameras are similar. The chart was fairly useful, although putting the weight in both lbs and oz (pounds and ounces) forced me to think a bit much. 16 ounces to a pound, right? (Google confirms yes.) Weight isn’t really my key decision point, but I am curious.

I decided to remove two cameras from the list, the Canon PowerShot S2 IS and the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT with 18mm-to-55mm lens (silver).

Clicked over to the Casio Exilim EX-Z750

The “bad” concerned me:

Sluggish burst mode; can’t charge battery or off-load photos without using the dock.

but I still clicked to the full review. There was only a paragraph or so on this page, so I went to the printer-friendly version, hoping to get it all on one page. I did. The dock requirement for charging or transferring photos does stick in my mind, so I’m not done yet.

I went back three pages, and went over to the Canon PowerShot SD600.

Almost immediately, went to full review. The initial page really doesn’t have enough information to make a decision. The full review showed me that time to first picture is 0.7 seconds, much slower than the Sony.

Decided to watch the in-page video review. Quite a loud Best Buy ad first, although only 10 seconds. Mildly helpful.

Went back two pages, to the comparison page once more, so I could watch the videos for the Sony and the Casio (links are five or six rows down in the grid). Watching the Casio video reinforced that I care not at all about manual features — if the camera can’t figure it out, I’m certainly not going to. (Also, the repeat of the Best Buy ad at the end was… unwelcome. Ad volume is much higher than the video volume; not a good part about TV to emulate.

Since the review date of the Casio was “Review date: 5/11/05″ (should be May instead of 5, but oh well), I decided to click on the link for “See all products in the Casio Exilim Z series” in the hope that maybe there was a new model which didn’t require the dock. Nope… the 750 is the newest.

At this point, I’m uncertain, so since I know there are editorial features which try and group like cameras available, I click on the Camera link in the header.

Scrolled down the page, and noticed a review for the Casio Exilim EX Z1000.

Once again, had to click through to the full review, where I saw that the camera has 10 (!) megapixels, but seems to come up a bit short in some other areas. Mostly, I wasn’t sure it was fast enough, although the shutter lag is cited at 0.3 seconds. From the review:

Despite a very responsive shutter, the Casio Exilim EX-Z1000 takes just a bit too long between shots. After a quick 1.8 seconds from power-on to first shot, the camera took 3.5 seconds between every additional shot–even though shutter lag in bright light was a minimal 0.3 second and only 0.5 second in dim light. With the onboard flash enabled, that sluggish rate ballooned to 5.1 seconds between shots.

Early in the review, there was a link to the Casio Exilim EX-Z850 — I guess that Z series page I looked at was historical in nature, which is frustrating. I wanted to know about these newer models in the same line. Glad I found them via another route!

Watched the video on that page, which shows a dock (ugh) in the screengrab, and that’s the one negative mentioned in the video, although not in the “bad” — wonder why?

I did continue on to the full review, and was annoyed once again by the limited info on the page, so I went to the printer-friendly version almost immediately. I think the dock is a deal-breaker, although I didn’t know it when I started this process.

Back to the Camera index page. Two of the three cameras I was looking at initially are in the Most Popular section (which is driven, I believe, by how many people clicked to buy the camera), and the third (the Sony) is in the Editors’ Top Products section. Scanning those two groups of five. The Z850 was in the latter group (Top Products), too. So, I’m probably in the right ballpark. How to decide?

I decided to look at the Canon PowerShot S80 from the Top Products list, since it also looked to be a pocket camera. It is. It’s an Editors’ Choice, which is good. A bit pricier than the other ones I was looking at, and only available from three stores. I watched the video…made me think it was slightly bigger than I want. But I went to the full review anyway, and quickly (the norm, now) over to the printer-friendly version. Yup… it’s not small enough:

The S80 isn’t as small as the ultrathin models out there, but it will easily fit in a jacket or a loose pants pocket.

Back to the full review, where I click in the left-hand navigation menu for “Editors’ top cameras” and then on Ultracompact cameras, last updated June 2, about six weeks ago. Four of the first five cameras on the page are ones I’ve looked at already. That’s good. I feel like I’m in the right place to make my final decision, especially since I can now compare price ranges on all of these, too. I don’t have to pick the cheapest one, but I want to know how much more I’m going to pay for each model.

I have to check out the Sony Cyber Shot DSC-T30, since it’s the only one I haven’t looked at in the top five. Over to the full review, one one page (yes!). I watched the video, longing for a different advertisement. (They are short.)

The T-30 is the first one where I went to check prices. Seeing the tax-adjusted price (with my zip code entered) was very welcome… adds $40 to the price of this camera, sending it over $500 at some of the merchants.

Hmmm… I did sort by price, and saw that the T-30 is available from J&R Music and Computer World for ~$440. I’ll admit that my reaction to this merchant is colored by the Science Tuesday section of the print New York Times, where J&R was always (still is, probably) one of the prominent advertisers. I don’t look forward to spending money with the NY camera merchants. So, I have two options for $10 more, and I’m going to go with PC Connection over Crutchfield, probably because it’s higher in the list (not very scientific). I may have ordered from them before.

The purchase

I clicked over from CNET to PC Connection at 10:10pm (damn, writing this up simultaneously has stretched the process out). (Here’s the page I arrived at, with the CNET attribution in the URL.) When I arrive, I realize that this is a Sony (duh), which means their damn memory sticks. Oof. Trying to decide whether I should bail, going back to the Canon PowerShot SD600, since I don’t want to deal with the Casio’s dock (too bad… great cameras otherwise). My current camera has CompactFlash cards, so I guess those won’t be in use either way. Oh well. My 1GB card would be nice to keep using. I’m disappointed the CNET editors didn’t remind me about the proprietary Memory Stick format, but maybe they assume that everyone knows about that tradeoff. I knew, but didn’t remember, obviously, as I considered other factors.

(It’s late, and I want to finish this off. If I wasn’t blogging it, I might just call it a night and sleep on it.)

Opened a new browser window, and went over to check prices for the Canon SD600. Much cheaper camera. Sorting by price shows me a few merchants I’ve never heard of pricing the camera just under $200! I’ve ordered from BuyDig before, though, so I think I’ll go with them instead, even at $80 more.

Except, before I click, I scroll up and read what I’ve noted here about each of the cameras, and I see that the Canon is about the slowest of all the ones I’ve been looking at. So, cheaper and slower and more common memory card (the Canon) or more expensive and faster and proprietary memory card (the Sony)? Since I have to buy new memory cards either way, and I’ve been griping about the slow shutter speed for years, I’m going to go with my initial instinct on the purchase, gritting my teeth about the Memory Stick all the way.

Before I checkout, though, I have to figure out which Memory Stick (a) comes with the camera and (b) is compatible, as there are now a Duo and Pro and a Pro Duo (huh?). So I go look at the specs again, and see that the Duo or Pro Duo are compatible… but I don’t know the difference, beyond expecting that the PRO option is more expensive. I scroll up to the Digital camera memory card selector in the left-hand nav, and on to the Memory Stick page.

Armed with the knowledge that I want a 1GB Memory Stick Pro Duo, I go back to PCConnection and decide on the cheapest one I can find ($47.95, a SanDisk).

The actual checkout process is speedy, and I have my confirmation email at 10:42pm.

Two hours of my life… gone. I hope (a) the camera is great and (b) my former colleagues at CNET find this blow-by-blow useful.

I am proud of my five and a half years at CNET. I worked with smart people and contributed to two redesigns of CNET News.com, and helped start the reshaping of CNET. Working with Jai Singh is a highlight of the time, and there are many, many others whom I look forward to crossing paths with over the years. And I cheer for their continued growth, across all brands and sites, with a special nod for the “Red Ball.” (I’m startled and surprised by the stock option issues. CNET Networks always felt like a company that was painfully correct about HR issues.)

Why did I leave?

First, I feared not recognizing when I needed to try something new. Read Seth Godin from a month ago: “Time to quit?” I was promoted in January (up, not sideways), and I was still growing, but I was also somewhat comfortable. I’m usually a fan of that word, but I started to believe that I needed to change to stretch myself.

Second, David got me energized about the opportunity in DNS, and the chance to be a big part of making something small into something very big. It’s a chance, not a right or a guarantee. It was time for me to put my shoulder into something where I could feel the organization move every time. I met the team, and I liked both the people and the ratio: six engineers or web developers to one wanna-be geek (me).

For me, it’s been the right choice. But I still skim all of CNET News.com via RSS every day. I’m looking to buy a new digital camera this week, to replace my Canon PowerShot S400 with something no bigger, physically, with at least the same 4 megapixels, but with a faster shutter speed. I’ll blog the process as a focus group of one for my former colleagues.

Thanks, CNET.