In recent centuries, the world of business has been replete with a two-faceted cycle of innovation and imitation. When a groundbreaking technology emerges, the idea gets some attention and other manufacturers take a look, then run off to make their own. This has largely been a necessity in the Technology Age. Automobiles began improving much faster once the innovator, Henry Ford, had some competition. Airplanes would have taken years longer to develop if other inventors and manufacturers hadn't gotten involved. Circling around a piece of innovation and the resulting imitators (and, in some cases, co-innovators) does society a lot of good.

One of the most interesting topics I encountered in MBA school was the concept of capitalizing on an original idea before competitors can seize the intellectual property and outsell you. Whether a company is too slow to file a patent, or too careless with how they discuss their future plans, any amount of poor planning in the midst of great ideas could lead to a firm's downfall.

In the high-tech age we now live in, there is a heavy amount of innovation and imitation, and there isn't a more prominent example of that than Apple. Setting aside the debate around the origin of the computer and the operating system, recent years have shown how Apple's innovation is the source of their consistent profitability and increasing popularity.

In my opinion, as a strong, resource-rich firm, Apple will dominate as long as they are on the side of the innovator. The iPod enjoys deep market penetration, yet how many iPod killers have we seen? The software behemoth Microsoft had every resource at their disposal and every reason to make the Zune a smashing hit. Why did it flop? Because Microsoft's imitation failed to have the core value of the model product, the iPod. In true Microsoft fashion, they latched on to "key" features that the iPod didn't have, in hopes that this would convert the market to a more feature-rich device. In the end, the core experience just wasn't there. Microsoft didn't innovate, they imitated.

All kinds of competitors are now emerging up against the greatest mobile phone the world has seen: Apple's iPhone. For me, the surest way to know if a competitive product is going to fail is to see how strong the arguments are around why it's going to destroy the iPhone (I'm looking at you, Samsung Instinct). I recently went to a private meeting at Verizon Wireless where they were showcasing their mobile devices and discussing their plans for the future. Verizon's staff was entirely confident that the Blackberry Thunder (due to come out this fall some time) is going to destroy the iPhone. But what are the stated arguments on how it's going to do this? Oddly, the forthcoming "killing" is based only on the fact that it does what the iPhone does. It has a touch screen, an accelerometer, a GPS chip, and all the productivity software you want. Well, great. You have successfully imitated. But where's the leap ahead? Where's the innovation? I don't think you can kill a product unless you innovate beyond it. Imitation is insufficient.

Another case arises with all the mobile phone app stores popping up on the roadmap. Google's Android will have one, T-Mobile is coming on board, and now Microsoft has introduced Skymarket to be available on Windows Mobile. Until significant improvements beyond the innovator arise, I see no reason why any of these replicates will win. I suspect users will choose a device based on the device, not on the app store available on it.

Domination requires innovation, not imitation.

Movable Type is a fantastic blog publishing platform. I think a couple years ago, other blog systems seemed to have clear advantages over MT, but now that it's free and open source, there's a lot to be enjoyed. Six Apart just released Movable Type 4.21 that contains a host of new features and critical speed improvements. The back-end blog management tool is the best-looking I've seen. I highly recommend it.

Another great reason to use Movable Type is the free iPhone web app that is available. It's a plugin you can add to your blog called iMT. It's super easy to implement. You simply upload two folders to two spots in your MT installation directory, and you're done. Your blog admin will be formatted beautifully for Mobile Safari on the iPhone. Nothing else is required. I've included a few screenshots so you can get a good feel for the elegance of the web app:

While I still think it would be cool if a thick app came out for the iPhone, this implementation is certainly worth using in the meantime. Good work, Six Apart. I can't see myself ever using another blog system as long as they keep up with the improvements.

It's a rare day when that which is playing on the radio makes me laugh out loud (yes, a real-life "LOL"). While driving home today, I decided to give NPR a listen. I heard an essay by Peter Sagal that I found quite amusing. I'm including it here simply because I want to keep a record of it.

My name is Peter, and I'm an Internet addict.

I listen as a nation shouts, "Big Deal," because these days everyone is.

So, fine, everybody has the same experience of looking at the clock -- or the calendar -- and realizing that all you've done for the past hour, or day, or year, is mindlessly click through Web sites. But the other day, I began to actually think about the nature of my addiction. What exactly was I looking for? It's not news. It's not porn. It's not Lolcats. It's the Bat Signal.

Let me explain.

Like a lot of people, I am constantly checking my e-mail accounts. I also check if anybody has commented on my blog, and I check my phone for text messages, and I await instant messages like a trembling young fawn. But I noticed recently that once I've received an e-mail, text message or comment, I feel a certain letdown. Before it arrives, it could be anything: a new opportunity, an old friend emerging from the past, a summons to the palace, because the king has decided that only I can save the kingdom. Once the messages arrive, they seem so mundane: friends I already have, requests that ask nothing of my special crime-fighting abilities, entreaties from Nigerians to whom I've already sent checks.

Years ago, in the pre-Internet age, when I had my first computer, I used to imagine how cool it would be if it would suddenly start talking to me. Now that it does -- all day -- I'm disappointed in what it says. I want it to say to me, "Wake up, Neo!" I want it to say, "The Justice League of America just had an opening, and we thought of you." I want it to say, "Save us!" And I say, "Who's that? Who's us?" And it goes silent, and I start an adventure that leads me to an underground lair and a fight with a mad genius whom I defeat by turning his pet Persian cat against them, and then I lead the formerly enslaved computer programmers to the mouth of the cavern where they blink from both the sun and their tears of gratitude.

So I check my e-mail, and there's a new message and it's from the girls' T-ball league telling me the games tonight have been canceled.

[Darn].

I'll give it a few seconds, and check again.

(source)

How true it is, and so cleverly stated by Peter. It's worth listening to just to hear his unique articulation.

In my view, the best way to set up your email is with your own domain name sitting on top of a Google domain. There are several good reasons to do it:

• IMAP is the only protocol that works well across multiple devices and mail clients. With Google IMAP, you get 6 GB+ per account which is plenty (at least for me). This also means you don't have to consume your web host's server space with email.
• You can read your email in a web client just as you do with Gmail, but instead of it being an @gmail.com address, it's @yourdomain.com.
• Having IMAP set up with all the benefits of Gmail makes connecting to your mail with multiple clients on multiple devices a beautiful thing (especially with that iPhone you have).
• You can give away email accounts and let those folks fill up Google's servers with their mail, not your web host's.

Okay, now that I've convinced you (or just confused you) let's go through the setup. It may seem a little techy, but stick with me and you'll be really glad you did.

Step 1: Get a Google Apps Account

Sign up here for free. Part of the setup includes verifying that the domain you're adding is yours. You'll need to upload a file to your server to verify. Keep in mind that this Google Apps account doesn't migrate your web host or move your files. Your web host remains intact and operates as it normally would. This just adds services on Google's servers under your domain's identity.

Step 2: Create Your Email Account(s)

Google gives lots of instruction on this along the way, but it's a good idea to create the email account you want to use first before making the real switch. What's the "real switch"? Read on.

Step 3: Change your MX (Mail Exchange) Records

This is done in the DNS settings of your web hosting account. Google provides instructions on how to do this for various hosts. Just pick your host in the drop-down list they provide and see how it's done. It's simply a matter of putting Google's mail exchange values (e.g. ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM) into your host's mail exchange settings.

Once that's complete, your email will start arriving at your new Google domain:

http://mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.com

Step 4: Setup Email in Your Mail Clients

This part should be common knowledge already, but there is one small gotcha. Your username for your Google Apps email is your full email address not just the username you use to log in to your Google Apps account. The beauty of this new account you have is that it can also be used as a Google Talk account or any other Google account. So no more cryptic Gmail address—you can be you@yourdomain.com in Google Talk.

There you have it. All the benefits of Gmail, all the benefits of your own domain name (to say nothing of Gmails awesome spam protection and the business benefits of putting your domain on Google Apps and using all the other services there). This really is the only way to go. The downside? Migrating all of that Gmail mail over if you had your @yourdomain.com account imported into a Gmail account. That could be another blog post on its own, but suffice it to say, I used POP to pull everything over with lots of filters to sort out the specific account I wanted. It's not a bad idea to just start fresh and not import anything. You can still get to your mail archives in your Gmail account, and if you think of how many years of email you have ahead of you, a fresh slate isn't a bad idea now and again.

I hope you realize the benefits of this configuration. Enjoy!

I read so much technology news these days that it really takes something interesting to get my attention (such as the massive arrival of unnamed devices in the U.S. from Apple's manufacturing facilities overseas). Yesterday, Adobe gave me an early birthday present by introducing the Fireworks CS4 Beta, a program I am heavily reliant upon and eager to see develop. I am now running Fw CS4 at home and at work, and suffice it to say, I love it to pieces.

Allow me to round up for you some of the changes that I find particularly welcome.

Color Palettes

I have building color palettes by hand for years now. I could draw little boxes and mix in more/less black to create several shades of a color. At long last, Adobe is giving me tools to do some of this. I can already feel myself getting faster at design.

Measure Tool

Many times you want to provide some specifics in your design so that creating the XHTML is a little faster. One of the new Auto Shapes is a measure tool that allows you to click and drag and create dimension markers on any element on the canvas. I currently waste a lot of time going back and forth between my code and my PNG just to double-check the dimensions of a graphic element. Hopefully this will speed that up and also provide reference to a coder in a situation where I hand off a design.

The Tabs Are Back

I really loved this about the PC version of Fireworks that they had a couple versions ago. Having everything flying around in its own window seemed so Windows 3.1. Another huge improvement is collecting all the toolbars back into one parent window (another Fw PC advantage). Spaces doesn't handle toolbars in Fireworks very well. Every time I go to another space and come back to the space that holds Fireworks, I have to hit Tab a couple times to bring the toolbars back. No seriously, every time I change spaces. What a bother. Now I don't have to worry about that. In fact, there are several new ways to manage your toolbars:

• Expanded Mode
• Iconic Mode
• Iconic Mode with Panel Names

UI Cleansing

It seems that UI enhancements come with every new release of software, and Adobe really hit the mark this time. They dulled out the deactivated options and muted the whole interface so you can focus on your design and the tools you currently have out. I really dig the new interface (and I'm pretty picky).

So what don't I like about Fireworks CS4? Well, it's a little early to have my grief all lined up especially since I'm still in wow-is-it-Christmas-already-with-my-software mode. My only expectation is that it doesn't get slower and that it remains stable. So far, it has been a little wobbly on its feet, and I'm beginning to wonder if it has new Spaces issues, but we'll see. So far, it's a definite step up. I better start saving up for the upgrade.