Ready or not, here I come. The popular chant of children playing hide-and-seek could perhaps be the official slogan of some technologies which were begging to be made but were a failed concept, such as Motorola’s Iridium Satellite phone, a debacle which costed them billions.

A myriad of other reasons have been responsible for the failure of products and/or services which once seemed like a great idea. Wrong time, wrong place, not enough support services, not enough content, not scalable, not monetizable, too expensive, or other competing technologies. Betamax, Apple Newton, Qube, ebook readers, Urbanfetch, and other dot com failures.

I don’t wish them ill, but the Internet phone (on the streets here since 2002), which I saw recently on West Broadway in SoHo, seems like something that, for many, would only be useful in an absolutely desperate situation. Of course, that does not doom them to failure. Many a business model has been built around urgent needs. However, handheld Internet-capable devices are ubiquitous and may have the impact on this technology that cell phones have had on regular payphones themselves.

The Internet phone, the Neptune 800 web phone, was developed by Marconi Corp. a London-based company (now owned by Ericsson). Initially, over 100 phones were installed city-wide for the NYC payphone company, TCC Teleplex, headed by Dennis Novick. Starting in 2002, British Telecom had very ambitious plans to roll out tens of thousands of these internet phone kiosks in the UK.

As I have written before, anything on the streets of New York City will be subjected to wartime conditions – various combinations of vandalism, abuse, and misuse. The Neptune phone has a die-cast aluminum chassis, a 10 millimeter toughened-glass touchscreen, an armored cash box, and a metallic, sealed keyboard to withstand vandalism and tolerate adverse weather conditions and humidity. It has a trackball and color touch-sensitive screen.

Services include email, video email, picture postcards, high-speed web browsing, or local information. Hot buttons give access to news, sports, shopping, games, weather forecasts, local maps, and information about shops and restaurants.
Ready or not for wide adoption, it has come…

I’m reminded of a classic episode of the TV comedy hit Seinfeld, where the two main characters, Jerry and George, are mistakenly taken as a gay couple. In order to express their rejection of the characterization but not appear homophobic, the writers came up with the brilliant response, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” The implication, of course, is that there is something wrong with that, even though the show is set in New York City, a place known for its extremely liberal population and large gay community.

And so it is that even in 2009, many men feel they must justify and defend, even without accusation, any activities or relationships that could be perceived as gay. A male friend(s) is a potentially dangerous association.

Group male activities on the streets on New York are not a common sight, and when I saw the men in today’s photo jogging together, the first word that came to mind was “buddies”, a word often used when I grew up. For many men, using the word “buddy” carried with it enough machismo to deflect any homosexual inferences in advance, “friend” perhaps being a little too personal.

Male friendship activities are pretty well delineated as to what can and can’t be done. Touching, for example, is very taboo – removing lint from another’s hair has to be done very carefully with just the right posturing. Perhaps safer just to say, “Hey, you have some junk in your hair.”
The safest male activities are, of course, group involvement in sports. A sport immediately legitimizes the manliness of its participants, and a group best assures that there will be no private/suspicious activity. An announcement to the wife that one is going out with some buddies to play ball carries with it the clearest affirmation.

To this day, men fear being gay or being seen as such, and gay slurs are still used by some men as the ultimate insults. I find homophobia rather silly. Women don’t labor under these constraints. Displays of affection, walking arm in arm, and reciprocal preening are all well accepted without stigma attached. Women realize that mere association with gays or displaying sensibilities which may appear gay has no effect on one’s sexual orientation. I have associated with many gays socially, hired them, and worked with them professionally.

Personally, I think most gay associations and stereotypes are complementary and positive in nature, such as appreciation of finer things, fashion, the arts, etc. Things such as the Seinfeld comment and TV shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy have helped build a more positive image for gays.

Now if I were accused of being gay because my mannerisms were highly affected like those of a flaming queen, perhaps I would be a little more self-conscious. Then I may feel the need to contact a few buddies for some male bonding – not that there’s anything wrong with that 🙂

If you live in New York City long enough, you will eventually hear something along the lines of “I’m goin’ to Jersey” or “I was in Jersey” or “They live in Jersey.” Most New Yorkers see the state of New Jersey as a grouping of bedroom communities to the city – there are over one half-million commuters from New Jersey to Manhattan daily.

The state nickname is the Garden State, and one of the major highways is the Garden State Parkway. Now, in fairness, there are some nice areas of New Jersey, but if you have seen any of the well-known gardens in the UK, France (the Gardens of Versailles, e.g.), Italy (Boboli, e.g.), Japan, or the U.S., you would agree that to call New Jersey the “Garden State” is perhaps a bit disingenuous. This is the only state in America where every county has been designated as urban by the Census Bureau’s Combined Statistical Area. New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the USA, with 1,134 people per square mile.

Whether you like New Jersey or not, it is an important part of the psychic makeup of a New Yorker’s mind (see View of the World here). In this classic image created by Saul Steinberg in 1976 for New Yorker magazine, New Jersey is depicted as one of a small handful of geographical landmarks. Ever present, looming in our minds, New Jersey is like background noise for the city. It is frequently the object of jokes by New Yorkers.*

This small state is a place of extremes. It has the second highest median income in the United States, yet Camden is one of the poorest cities in America. It is the home of Princeton University. The state has a strong presence in chemical development and oil refining. The Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal is one of the world’s largest container ports. You have the Jersey shore with Atlantic City.

There are only three ways to drive directly from Manhattan to New Jersey: the George Washington Bridge and the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels. So congestion is the rule of thumb. There is heavy traffic even at times that would be unexpected anywhere else – the photo was taken Sunday afternoon. Jersey anyone?

*Why are New Yorkers so depressed? Because the light at the end of the tunnel is New Jersey!

It occurred to me while reading about the Plaza Hotel that, except to individuals such as Warren Buffet and Bill Gates and to sovereign nations, A BILLION BUCKS IS A LOT OF MONEY. That is what the total cost of the Plaza Hotel was: $675 million to purchase and $400 million to renovate. How do you make a return on that kind of money? Easy in New York City with a landmark property on Central Park. Start by renting rooms at $1000 per night. Sell off 182 rooms as condos (only 80 are now rented as hotel rooms). Read my story about the hotel here. The photo is of the corner lobby and its champagne bar with color-changing glassware display.

I am perplexed by wealth. I have met wealthy individuals, and they are not all extraordinary individuals like Steve Jobs of Apple, Muhammad Yunus, or Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google. Successful individuals appear to some combination of skills, instincts, and personality traits – I think pure chutzpah is one of them. And then there are the elements of luck, opportunity, and willingness to act on that opportunity.
Some may feel that a love of money and a complete lack of scruples is all that separates them from success.

Selling out is the key phrase. That if they adopted the mindset of a whore, riches would flow towards them, but their honesty and goodness keeps them in the middle or under class. I don’t think that is really true – I have met many who are willing to do anything for money, and their lives are a testament to bungling failure. So for me, the mystery remains, because although there are dishonest, unscrupulous businessmen and rich call girls, there are also many honorable millionaires/billionaires and poor whores…