InnoWiser

Twitter’s Fail Whale has a fan club . Apparently as a result of being lifted out of water — a few too many times — by its feathered friends And a Facebook club . And a complete set of merchandise at Zazzle , from mugs to that all-American necessity - the T-shirt.

Many bloggers have commented on Twitter’s downtime . I’ll restrict mine to a little haiku.

"Too many tweets"
says Fail Whale. Seek inner peace
Time to do real work.

[Image courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurita13/2625253306/]

Twitter is over-
capacity again. Sigh.
Bezos to rescue?

Twitter announces funding  by Jeff Bezos and Union Square Ventures

You know the oil price crisis is hurting when even commuters in Los Angeles are starting to take the subway. Los Angeles, that urban prawl, which is “fifty-two suburbs in search of a city”, is hardly a commuter’s dream. Freeways criss-cross freely in and around the city while commuters sit in parking lots, waiting endlessly to get to their destination. Having lived in one of its suburbs a decade ago, without the ubiquitous car and commuted to work, I have seen first hand the mess called urban traffic. LA — the City of Light, the land of the “Ventura Highway”, the city that gave the world smog, and the city that used to have a 1000-miles of subway tracks — is hardly a city to live in without a car. Public transport is almost non-existent, and where it exists, it doesn’t go where you want to go, as the BBC reporter found out. So it is indeed ironic when commuters in Los Angeles start taking the subway.

Of course, this is all related to the oil price at the gas stations. Crude oil price topped $135 per barrel today, and have been on a roll since early this year, and especially since the analysts on the Street predicted $200/barrel by the end of the year.
The causes of this meteoric rise in oil prices aren’t unknown. In fact, they are all around us. The big fat SUVs, the measely 10-15 mpgs vehicles and the quaintly American penchant of driving 5 minutes to grocery stores, gyms and banks all add their 2 cents worths to come up to $100 and beyond. A BBC chart shows how oil got to $100/barrel in the first place.

If you are looking for gas prices at the station across the US, this map (via GasBuddy.com) is helpful.


Of course, this is old familiar “arm, leg and a first born” refrain.

[via National Geographic]
Citizens of Europe would perhaps happily give their arm and leg for a rate as cheap as $4/gallon.

So what’s an average commuter to do?
As both NY Times and Wall Street Journal reported, commuters are heading to scooter dealers in hopes of finding the 60-80 miles per gallon alternative: that old, humble, even humorous relic of the WWII era - the scooter.

NYT has a good review of the Vespa S, the old style 150cc version.


[via NY Times]

The Wall Street Journal goes one step further. It compares the cost of ownership
(well, the cost of fuel, mainly) of a Vespa, a Honda Accord and a large SUV. See here:



Meanwhile, in the other part of the world, the Indian car market is booming. Indian market analysts are “jubilant” over the fact that now India is the fastest growing passenger car market, per Automobile India.

I find it mildly ironic that in the United States, the land of the plenty, the land of the free and free trade, this idea of a small, personal fuel-efficient vehicle, nay, scooter, may actually be taking root. Having driven one for almost 10 years in India where scooters sometimes seem to outnumber people, and where the vastly growing middle-class and the burgeoning noveau riche are now spending their millions of dollars and rupees on premium and luxury cars, while also eagerly awaiting the $2,500 Tata Nano, it does indeed sound a bit ironic.

India’s Tata Motors, part of the giant Tata enterprises, unveiled the long-awaited “People’s car“, the Tata Nano, at Delhi’s car show. The Nano earns the moniker of the world’s cheapest car; at a retail price of just $2,500 (Rs. 1,00,000 / GBP $1,277) it is cheaper than a souped-up gamer’s PC, a high-end laptop, an Armani-suit or an air ticket for two (or one, in the high-season) from U.S. to India. But would you drive one?

What makes it so cheap? The Nano has a 2-cylinder, 33 bhp / 625 cc engine mounted in the rear. The engine is about the capacity of some commercial lawn mowers. It has no AC, no power steering, no power windows, no power bells and whistles. It does have, though, 4 wheels and a continuous variable transmission. There is no boot, but the front cavity does have space for a briefcase. And somewhere in there the designers have managed to squeeze in 4 doors and 5 seats. All in a car that’s about the 3.1 meters (10′) long and 1.6 meters (5′4″) high. The International Herald Tribune calls it a feat of “Gandhi engineering“, a scarcity mantra that spurns superfluous doodads.

(Images: Tata Motors)

As if to prove the point, the steering wheel is hollowed out. Plastics and adhesives have replaced many of the nuts and bolts. The headlight leveler is removed, so the lights do not follow the ups and downs of the road. There is no tachometer for the revver amongst us, and the speedometer is an analog one instead of a digital one, thus showing only approximate speed. Not that it would matter much; the car can barely zoom past the 70 mph mark.

Target Market

Who would drive one? The low-cost car is clearly intended for the masses. For the family of four that would otherwise ride on a scooter, precariously balancing a tiny tot on the front and a baby on the wife’s lap. For the first-time car buyer in India - a huge market despite the increasing number of cars in the urban and semi-urban areas. For them, it promises a safer ride than the usual balancing act of 4 people on two wheels.

Will the Nano succeed? There is no doubt that Tata is uniquely qualified in bringing the car to the market. Tata is already India’s largest auto manufacturer, with over $7 billion in sales. They have tremendous experience in designing for the “Indian roads”, defined generally as roads with large potholes, dust, tropical weather conditions and autos that take abuse at the hands of drivers, passenger and animals. They also have a vast distribution network throughout the country. Those in the West, particularly the UK, are concerned about Tata’s takeover bid for ultra-luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover. While these may be genuine concerns, they also smack of a case of sour grapes.

Car of the Future?

Is this the car of the future? Quite possibly, this is where other car makers may be headed. IHT notes that Ford may be planning to launch a $3,000 small car in partnership with Bajaj auto, a maker of those perennially favorite, but often-derided, two-wheelers. Toyota, Honda and Fiat are already considering small cars for emerging markets. Tata itself may consider exporting these cars to Latin America, Africa and other places.

Market-wise, Indian has 7 cars per 1,000 people, compared to 550 per 1,000 in Germany and 476 per 1,000 in France. So there is only one way for car density in India to go: up.

No doubt, the Nano is a tremendous feat of engineering, Gandhian or not. But is that necessarily a good thing? Already, environmentalists are sounding alarms about the Nano’s emissions. While Tata claims that the car satisfies all the current (Euro III) environmental standards and is better than the ubiquitous two-wheelers in India, experts claim that emissions are likely to worsen depending on its life. Indian cities are already chokeful of smoke and pollution and my experience of just one week in the Bangalore traffic last month was enough to make me wish stay indoors. India’s major cities plan to adopt the Euro IV emissions standards, requiring a 1/35th reduction in sulfur emissions, a costly endeavor by any means. Whether the standards will actually be implemented is a whole different story.

Secondly, given the cheap parts of the Nano, there are serious reservations about the car’s longevity, in particular because in India vehicles are supposedly used for eternity. They are driven until they sputter and die, and then bandaged together to make them run in their next karmic incarnation. The value-conscious Indian masses are loathe to purchasing a new vehicle every 3-5 years the way Western families typically do. (And that may be a *good* thing. One shudders to contemplate the state of roads and traffic if every Indian family did actually buy new vehicle every 3 years.) Although, to be fair, the new riches and the rising economy means that there already are far more vehicles than the current infrastructure will bear.

Is it fair to blame the Nano for the (upcoming) ills of Indian road infrastructure? Probably not. But like it or not, the increased affordability of cars means an increased strain on the environment, roads, traffic and stresses. One positive aspect of the Nano, as I see it, is that like the One-Laptop-Per-Child project — which has risen in cost from its marquee $100 to about $170 but has introduced the possibility of cheap(er) computing for the masses — the low cost engineering solutions may actually force innovations that will one day provide a safer transport for the masses. Perhaps the constraints of low-cost engineering will actually force other car makers to consider their own safer, cleaner alternatives. And even if the Nano does not succeed in the market, perhaps it will have started a safe ride along the way.

What do you think? Is the Nano a car of the future? Or just another Yugo debacle waiting to happen? Would you drive one?

Most mass media have evolved on the backbone of advertising. Advertisers support the medium by buying ad space, inventory, etc.; consumers (readers, surfers, listeners, etc.) get their fix of the media’s message for free or by paying a small sum to the channels. Newspapers have used business model for years, and so has TV and radio. It’s a concept that is readily understood by all the parties.

The Web is no different. The evolution of Internet and advertising has shown, very clearly, that this ad-supported model is well entrenched. Internet advertising is about $24 billion a year market, and growing faster than you can say “Stop! Spam!”. Users / readers / listeners have consistently shown that they prefer “free” content on the web over over paid content, even if the cost of that “free” content is consuming ads. The New York Time has abandoned its paid subscription model (reportedly earning less than $10 million a year) in favor of an open, ad-supported business. Rumors are persistent that even the Wall St. Journal may offer free, ad-supported access to its content. Even the BBC has started displaying ads on its website for out-of-the-UK users. Perhaps the media are seeing the online message.

But the larger question is - who clicks on these online ads? And more relevantly for this post - who clicks on mobile ads?

BBC commentator Bill Thompson writes that that the writing is on the wall for ads.

“The growth of the internet, and the availability of content, services and even software, would seem to depend on the continuing stream of advertising revenue that flows across the network… This growing reliance on advertising over other forms of income carries with it the same dangers as any other dependency on a single source of revenue in business. While it is unlikely that Google, Microsoft or Yahoo will vanish, changes to their business models could threaten the deals which currently keep many sites alive.But the real problem is that the flow of funds into the advertising networks could diminish, especially if there is an economic downturn.”

And it indeed is. The downturn of 2000 - 2003 is a persistent reminder. It would seem that users who click on these ads are indeed serving an important purpose, namely, keeping the online content (mostly) free for the rest of us.

So who are the people who click on ads? I, personally, have only clicked-thru while doing a focused product / service search. Something like the Canon 800 IS, or Garmin Nuvi that I recently bought. I rarely click thru the banner ads largely because I don’t see them in the first place, thanks to AdBlock Plus, the super easy Firefox extension that blocks most visual ads. (Not being part of the MTV generation who were constantly fed the erratically moving images that I find utterly distracting, not to mention head-ache inducing, I have never gotten accustomed to these distracting, fast-moving images, even on shows like “24″ or movies like “Bourne Ultimatum”. So, no dancing people or annoying graphics for me. Wonder if NYT will now let me access their site? What about BBC?? Hmm…) And I’m pretty sure, I’m not the only one of the not-clicking kind.

Quoting dana boyd, one of the first people to research online communities and their social interactions and networks, Bill says the ‘heavy clickers’ form roughly 0.2% of web users and they are largely older folks, predominantly women, and predominantly mid-western, with some from New England and mid-Atlantic. They tend to click on sweepstakes more than any other content. (See danah’s interesting post here.) The results were part of an AOL study. (I’m assuming this study was US-based.) Danah goes on to add that these users are likely to be:-

• More representative of lower income households than the average user.
• Less educated than the average user (or from less-educated environments in the case of minors).
• More likely to live outside of the major metro regions.

In other words, these are “more likely to trend lower in both economic and social capital than the average user.”

Hmm… now if you are an average web advertiser, would this be your target market, broadly speaking? I thought so.

Now, it’s entirely possible that there are richer segments (financially speaking) that are heavy clickers, or that different sites would have different consumer characteristics and therefore varied click-thru concentration. The question, though, is still quite valid - who are the more frequent clickers?

I am looking for more research on this, and would appreciate any studies or links you may have come across. Thanks!

Mobile

In the mobile space, this question is even more relevant. Mobile advertising is still in its infancy, with roughly $870 million spent in 2006 (Informa estimate). Estimates of its growth vary dramatically, from $5 billion in US by 2011 (eMarketer estimate) to $11 billion globally by 2011 (Informa estimate) to beyond $14 billion globally by 2012 (Strategy Analytics estimate).

One mobile firm that is offering ad-subsidized mobile services is Blyk. Analysts and industry watchers have keenly followed the launch and rise of Blyk. Blyk offers 16-24 year olds (in the UK) free “217 text messages and 43 minutes” per month, in exchange for 6 SMS texts per day. Users fill out a questionnaire about their habits and the brands they like, and receive ads based on their taste. Blyk’s Timo Ahopelto writes about its business model:

First, the need to lower the phone bill is universal among young people. No matter where you go, young people are students or early in their careers, needing to save money for both necessity and fun. Second, Blyk links young people up with brands they like. Access to brand messages is social capital among young people. Third, advertising in traditional media is losing its power exactly like in Europe. Street corners are packed with billboards, and television programs are testing the limits of advertising per hour. A mobile media where themes, frequency, timing and pace of advertising are designed to deliver the best impact for brands and user experience for consumers does play very well in this environment.

Looks like Blyk has its bases covered. The youth market is a hot commodity in advertising, and if Blyk succeeds in targeting them, well, the industry will likely follow. All the best to Blyk, people are closely watching.

In other research, Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has written that it’s not just the youth who may be clicking on mobile ads, but also the older, more professional crowd who form the bulk of the Blackberry crowd, paying $10 per month or more for email access. Indeed this segment would be a good catch, if the advertisers can entice them to click on the ads in the first place.

So, if you are a mobile user, have you clicked on ads? Which ones? What types (SMS texts, coupons, videos, etc.)? Let me know!

Also, I would love to see more non-vendor supported/sponsored studies on mobile advertising. If anyone has any links, please do share. Thanks!

This is classic, from Ms Rogue.

What trait do teenagers share with Facebook?

An inability to see the long-term consequences of their bad short-term decisions.

This is, of course, with respect to the Facebook Beacon and the ensuing brouhaha. Not that I don’t want Facebook to succeed; on the contrary, it would interesting to see it success (as if 40 million users isn’t successful enough). But for those who are concerned about the privacy issues of FB Beacon and are looking to stop the FBook beacon, here’s a quick link on how to do it.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s not even a Google Phone!

So Google has thrown its hat in the mobile phone business in a big way. Blogs and papers were rife with rumours and newsbytes about the new, new thing from Google. Yesterday Google announced its Open Handset Alliance of partners and the Android platform. Absent from the announcement is a true hardware, the GPhone. It is probably only a matter of time before a real GPhone appears.

To a large degree it matters little what structure of the new thing is. What matters more, perhaps, is how Google is taking on the key stakeholders - mobile carriers, handset makers, semiconductor manufacturers, etc. and crafting a new approach to developing and selling mobile phones. It is perhaps a smart strategy by Google to not compete directly with the bigger players by making its own phones, but instead focus on the guts, the Android software platform and its specifications. Let a dozen handset manufacturers battle it out amongst themselves; Google will provide them all with ammunition. (Not that Google wants them to kill each other off. No, that would rather defeat the purpose.)

By providing the specifications for a mobile platform (operating system) and collecting a cadre of mobile partners, Google is ensuring that it remains at the center of the mobile ecosystem. Operators and handset makers will have the ability to customize services on their new hardware; however, Google will retain the ability to add new services on the phones, ensure consistency of basic look and feel, and most importantly, revise and update the specifications as and when required. This is battle of the platforms, rather than a battle of phone makers per se. It’s a Google mobile operating system versus (Nokia led) Symbian, Windows Mobile and Palm OS. But mostly it is Google vs. Microsoft.

What does Google hope to gain from this initiative? In short, new channels for mobile advertising, expected to be the next, hot battlefield of Internet advertising. Everything else would probably be just gravy on the top. True, operators would like to be seen as innovative by supporting an “open” initiative, and the larger the number of partners, the more open the alliance looks.

Let’s look briefly at the current partners in the alliance.
Mobile Operators:
Asia - China Mobile, KDDI NTT DoCoMo
Americas - SprintNextel, T-Mobile
Europe - Telecom Italia, Telefonica

Handsets Makers:
HTC, LG, Motorola, Sansung

Semiconductor:
Audience, Broadcom, Intel, Marvell, Nvidia, Qualcomm, SiRF, Synaptics, Texas Instruments

Software:
Ascender, eBay, Emertec, Google, LivingImage, NMS Communications, Nuance, PacketVideo, SkyPop, SONiVOX

Commercialization:
Aplix, Noser, TAT (The Astonishing Tribe), Wind River

(Source: Open Handset Alliance)

Conspicuous by their absence are large existing players with their own offerings. Nokia, with its Symbian OS. AT&T, which exclusively released Apple’s iPhone. And other European or Asian operators like Vodafone, Bharti, etc. Perhaps they all are taking the wait-and-see approach. More likely, they see Google as a rising competition. More on this later.

There are several reasons why Google is likely to succeed, and a few where it will face tremendous hurdles.

Success
Partnerships. For any alliance to be accepted, the size of its partnership matters. It is a testament to Google’s leadership that it has indeed been able to sign up over 30 partners. Perhaps others will join as they see a benefit in reaching more consumers.

Abilty to “act” neutral. By defining an “open” alliance, by offering its Android platform free of charge and thus opening up the platform for various applications, Google indeed has shown that it is serious about neutrality. It also puts the platform squarely against Microsoft’s Mobile platform. Other platforms such as Symbian, J2ME, and Linux are indeed open so there is definite aspect of competition.

However, GigaOm is not impressed with this move. Om thinks it is at best a PR move for now, and perhaps a real GPhone hardware from Google will be out in 2008. It is a point worth pondering.

Hurdles

Google’s power in the Internet world makes carriers suspicious. Carriers like to think that they “own” the mobile customers, and that they should be make the largest chunk of money from their customers. Too bad that the carriers do not innovate as effectively as other, smaller startups do. (Think top twenty of the latest mobile innovations and count how many have the carriers developed themselves. Most mobile innovations today are coming from the fringes, such as Apple, Twitter, Dopplr, Jaiku [bought recently by Google] and so on.) So they are likely to thwart Google’s entry in the ecosystem, especially where Google is likely to monetize the trump card - mobile advertising. The only reason carriers might actually work with Google is where they get a good chunk of the advertising pie.

More importantly, large players like AT&T, Verizon Wireless have been sparring with Google on its bid to buy wireless spectrum and change the rules of the game. They see Google’s move as a precursor to an entry into the carrier business.

What does it mean for end consumers? In short, there’ll be more choice in handsets. A more open phone, with no “walled garden” from suspicious mobile carriers will indeed be a refreshing change. Indeed, the phones might offer a better surfing experience with familiar Google applications - Gmail, Maps, Search, Docs, etc. - all preloaded on the phones. On the other hand, there’s no concrete drool-worthy design such as the iPhone yet announced.

Ultimately, the battle will be won in the marketplace, as it almost always is.

MIT students hackers, in keeping with their long standing tradition of hacks, practical jokes and other humorous pranks, recently scored another one*. This time they pwned venerable John Harvard’s statue.

Olde John is seen sporting a Spartan helmet complete with a Beaver emblem, a la a Halo 3’s Master Chief warrior, an assault rifle, “in recognition of the release of Halo 3″ video game. Right on, I say!

As it happens, that statue is a statue of “three lies”. The university was not founded by John Harvard (it was named after him when he bequeathed his library); it was founded in 1636 (not 1638, as written on the statue’s pedestal); and the model is not John Harvard, but a friend of the sculptor’s. The old guard who sits somewhere near it never fails to inform tourists after they have taken their picture with it.

At MIT, we always enjoy(ed) a little friendly rivalry with the school down the river. It’s great to see the tradition continued. Apparently, the blogosphere has noticed.

Some of the previous hacks have included installing a police car on top of the great MIT dome, hauling a cow on it (which had to be offloaded by a helicopter), a Lord of the Rings inscription around the dome, among others.

For the curiously minded, a chronology of MIT hacks is documented in “Nightwork“, reportedly written by “Institute Historian T.F. Peterson“. An inside joke, if ever there was one.

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist this story, even if sort-of off-topic. After first dissing leetspeak, I can’t help noticing it everywhere.) It’s been a while since I saw these hacks. Interesting How Time Flies Past…

“Internet Addiction Disorder“. Sooner or later, this term had to enter the zeitgeist. It happened way back in ‘95, but now the trend-spotting ad agency JWT claims it affects “more than 1 in 3 Americans”. Americans are giving up socializing and other offline activities in favor of a WiFi signal and an Internet connection. Interestingly, the survey says many people think of their mobile phones as an extension of themselves. Maybe the surveyors forgot to include Japanese teenagers about how they feel about their mobiles?

John P., formerly of GMSV and now at All Things D, has a funny take on it.

I’m ambivalent about many of these (media-created/ publicized) “disorders”, like the “restless leg syndrome“, but if these are repeated often, do they become self-fulfilling prophecies?

On the other hand, the tribe of those CrackBerry Blackberry wielding people (you know who you are) is ever increasing. Lucy Kellaway, always the one to make fun of corporate trends and shenanigans, has her take on it. Even the WSJ dipped its toe in it talking about “Blackberry Orphans”. No doubt, to appeal to those same people.

(For the record, I am still haven’t joined the ranks… yet).

When it comes to innovation, no one does it quite like Apple. After all the buzz in the blogosphere about Apple’s intentions, Apple rewarded the faithful with the latest iPod lineup. In a word, the new iPods are simply amazing. Beautiful and totally drool-worthy, just like the previous models. This time the interface is the same, but new. A bummer for early adopters is that Apple has slashed the price of the iPhone by $200 in anticipation of the coming holiday season. However, more significant than the revamped user interface is a more subtle change - the evolving ecosystem. And no one is at a better advantage than Apple itself.

The most significant changes include the new nano, now with video; a new iPod touch; and a new iTunes WiFi store.

Nano
The new nano is now more round and has a bright video display. As if the earlier models weren’t stunning enough, the new one looks even more so. And it’s available in black, white/silver, red and pastel colors. The models come in 4Gb and 8Gb capacity. As far as the lower end of the MP3 segment is concerned, they’ve got it covered.

The regular iPods are now iPod Classic, with 80 Gb and 160 Gb capacities, priced at $250 and $350. Now these make my 2-year old video iPod look positively old.

iPod Touch = No PC Required?
The biggest introduction is the new iPod Touch, which has the multi-touch interface Apple introduced on the iPhone. Gone is the familiar scroll wheel, in favor of the multi-touch controls. It looks like the iPhone, operates like the iPhone, but is not an iPhone. Infact, it looks like it’s the iPhone minus the phone capabilities. But the biggest features present are the Safari web browser and WiFi capabilities, until now not available on any iPod (barring the iPhone).

This is an extremely smart move on Apple’s part, because it feeds into the third big piece: integration into the iTunes WiFi portal. In effect, users will be able to browse, listen to, buy and download songs from the iTunes website without being tethered to a PC/Mac. In one swoop, Apple has provided seamless mobility like no other device has. Sure, Microsoft’s Zune has WiFi and users can even share their music (with restrictions), but given that Zune is perceived as an also-ran, no self-respecting geek would wait several hours in line for the Zune. I am not certain if a PC/Mac is required at all, but this WiFi feature is certainly in the correct direction.

User input for the browser is through the virtual keyboard (as on the iPhone), meaning users will have to get used to the non-feedback-giving touch screen, which may be a hassle for some. (I’ve tested it a few times on some iPhones, and it takes a little getting used to). On the other hand, Apple is perhaps priming up its user base to go for the iPhone by providing an interface similar to it. The first rule of usability is providing users a consistent and familiar interface, and in this the iPod Touch succeeds in going two steps forward, but perhaps one step back (in removing the scroll wheel).

Partnering Across the Ecosystem
While the iTune WiFi store is a critical piece in the user experience of the iPod Touch, Apple has gone one step further. Apple has a partnership with Starbucks where the new iPod Touch devices will automatically detect the WiFi hotspots at Starbucks locations. Not only that, the songs currently playing at the location will be available for instant download and purchase. At the click of a (virtual) button on the screen, users can sample the tracks and purchase them. All the purchases will be automatically synced up with their iTunes on the PC.

At the same time, the iPod Touch is integrated with YouTube. YouTube’s featured videos are available at the touch of a button, as are other features. See Apple’s guided tour video here.

The Missing Mobile VoIP?
Considering that the iPod Touch is complete with WiFi (an Internet connection), browsing capabilities, and *almost* a phone, how much of a stretch is it to imagine using it as an actual phone? With the addition of microphone accesory and some neatly hacked software, perhaps somebody might just be able to convert it into a device with a mobile communicator, with voice over WiFi (mobile VoIP). I’m pretty sure that hackers somewhere are thinking along similar lines, if not already in the process of doing it.

Which begs the question whether the iPod’s closed system will really made open at any time for applications. A smarter move on Apple’s part would be to attract developers to both the iPod and iPhone. Not only will Apple earn even more devotion from users, it will also attract establish it as a platform of choice for mobile applications.

What Price Early Adoption?

The biggest surprise was a $200 price drop for the 8Gb iPhone, just months after it was introduced. That’s a 33% drop. The 4Gb iPhone will be phased out. Where does it leave the early adopters? Has Apple just alienated its most ardent followers? To be sure, Apple is giving the $200 back to users, but only if they’ve purchased it in the last 14 days. What about those who stood in the lines for days to buy it? Read Om Malik’s post on it here: how to get your $200 back.

What do you think? Would you go and buy the iPod Touch? Or or would you buy the iPhone? Or wait for the true 3G version of the iPhone?