Earlier today I spoke to the the co-founder of BitWine, Alon (pronounced “alone”) that was profiled here yesterday. Last night we played a brutal game of appointment tag in the BitWine system and while I can’t speak very positively about the appointment setting part of BitWine (it sucks frankly) Alon did promise that a much better version was forthcoming after the first of the year. Alon shared a few other things about BitWine, some of which I’ve recounted in this very first episode of Hmm & Tell.

Unrelated sidenote: check out the last number in the URL, this is also the 4,000th post. Thank you to everybody who has ever stopped by and especially those who return and subscribe. Here’s to another 4,000!

I’ve seen numerous pay for advice/information/consulting sites crop up and have even signed up for a few of them like Ether and Flavorsofa. Never really have promoted or done much business through them though. Since I’m already logged into Skype 24/7 and we use PayPal in our business Bitwine seems like a natural fit to incorporate a pay per minute service.

I signed up for BitWine this morning and was impressed with the hassle-free process, including registering, integrating with the PayPal API (clicking links basically if you are already setup as a business customer with PayPal), downloading and installing the accompanying BitWine taskbar which shown below:

The taskbar which runs the entire space of the bottom of the screen just above the Windows start menu interfaces with Skype and shows your online status in BitWine. You don’t have to run this all the time, as people can search BitWine and schedule appointments.

For example, if you search BitWine for my name, you’ll see my profile and be able to click on the calendar and setup an appointment (shown below).

You can click on my name and see my profile page. With owning and operating multiple businesses I have limited time, so I’m not sure even if there is interest how many of these BitWine calls I’ll be able to do. At the same time I am curious about checking this out in a real world business scenario.

Note to readers: if you would like to chat with me for non-voice/video chat then you are welcome and encouraged to do so free in the comments below (I personally read every published comment at Hmm) and/or stop by our IRC server: irc.scriptschool.com #scriptschool where I regularly hang out. Feel free to park a nick there and hang with our small IRC group. We don’t bite. Well, we don’t bite friendly, non-disruptive netizens anyway. We will bite people who flood or do any other lame IRC stuff. Actually, my biggest complaint with IRC and IM is that people are sometimes very impatient. It’s like they pop in, ask a question, and leave long before we can answer or query both our own or third party resources for a helpful response.

So who/what/where/when would I like to use with BitWine?
Companies or individuals who would like to pick my brain with full, undivided attention and receive technical and/or business advice — or help in finding/building solutions — on web or desktop programming-related topics, running a web-based business, site monetization, webmastering and/or writing/blogging-related topics. These are all activities where I have varying levels of experience and am offering as a pay per minute service through BitWine.

Choosing how much to charge
The per minute rate you set at BitWine needs to be something you can live with for your time spent. I could write volumes on the importance of proper valuation of time but to summarize, don’t sell yourself short. Don’t agree to some lowball rate that you’ll regret or resent when/if somebody actually wants to do business with you. The flipside is not overcharging and overestimating how much your time is really, tangibly worth to others.

How do you find out what your time is worth to others when you’ve never charged anybody by the minute before? Ask people you’ve done business with what seems like a fair rate for your time. They will usually tell you what is too much. You can also look at what others are charging in your area(s) of experience at BitWine and use that as a guide.

If you have experience that can help others, particularly if it’s unique, niche experience, then charge appropriately. If you charge too cheap a rate the perception on the other end will actually work against you. With that said, don’t try to be the most expensive in your area(s) of expertise if you aren’t able to bring the most value to the client per minute.

A cursory search around BitWine displayed rates which ranged from 99 cents per minute up to over $4/minute. If I’m on the paying side of the business and paying $4 per minute I better be receiving information that makes me — or saves me — $12-20/minute and I sincerely doubt very few advisors on BitWine are worth that much. As a general rule, I expect to make or save at least three times what I spend back on any business expense, including advertising.

In my case on the advisor side, I decided it was important to receive at least what clients are currently paying for my custom programming work and then I added a little extra based on the sum of experience in topics other than programming-related which I feel warrants charging a little more. I probably should shave a little off for people actually willing to look at my ugly mug on camera though, shouldn’t I? I’m not sure I’m going to keep the webcam option enabled long term. Nobody really needs to pay to see a geek in real time.

eBay style rating keeps service in check
BitWine has an eBay style rating service where clients and advisors can rate each other. This gets back to making sure your service is priced fairly and that you actually deliver what you promise. Nobody wants negative eBay feedback, so using this style of feedback is a great way to keep the BitWine service reputable.

Using the service?
Since I haven’t actually used the service yet as either a client or advisor I can’t comment on how well the actual process works and invite any commentary below for those who have taken the plunge. I imagine it works similarly to any other Skype video call. Quality on these calls can vary considerably, and it’s good to see that there is a refund option baked into the BitWine Taskbar so that advisors can refund part or all of the amount for any call with quality problems.

I also noticed it’s easy to pause and restart the payment time from reading the client side of things. There is also an initial process where negotiation over the published rate can take place before the actual charging of the time takes place. This would give an advisor the ability to ratched up or down the cost based on other factors. I definitely like that clients can contact the advisor and see if it’s the right match before being charged.

Overall, this service is put together impressively for both the advisor and client side and I look forward to trying it out.

Starting yesterday, people who buy the Superman Returns DVD at Wal-mart have an option of paying an extra $1.97 for the digital version download formatted for portable devices, $2.97 for computer-compatible version or $3.97 for a version that works on both. A 16 character redemption code is provided that looks similar to the code you enter to register Windows software and can be used to download the video from a beta walmart.com site.

Enter the cliche dragon.

As for compatibility, there is some fine print. The Wal-Mart downloads that are compatible with portable devices will be in Windows Media Player format, which means that they’ll play on all devices that accept that format–including Microsoft’s new Zune–but not Apple’s iPods. And the PC-compatible downloads will require the Windows XP operating system and Windows Media Player 10. Mac and Linux users, at least for now, need not apply.

So essentially we drop an extra four bones and still don’t get the ability to watch the video on our iPod 5g or PSP? Yay, we can watch it on our new Zune and our Windows PCs but not on the Linux workstation I just activated on our network. Weak.

Without an additional layer — say $4.97 for a completely DRM-free version that can be used on any platform — this isn’t anything groundbreaking.

This morning I read that in February 2007 Paramount Pictures, Liongate, 20th Century Fox, TV Shows from MTV and others will be offering downloads via BitTorrent. Will these files be DRM-encumbered too? I’m sure they will be but hopefully they’ll offer versions for every platform.

If they must load in a DRM-laced version, why not package in with the DVD a version that can be copied and played on Windows, Mac, Linux and portable devices? Making people wait for the download who just paid for it seems silly to me. Most DVD movies are overpriced at $15-25 anyway. Most TV Seasons are fairly priced but single movies I think should be priced at $10 and digital version with lower quality for $5-7. People would buy more movies at those prices, but Hollywood doesn’t think quantity terms. And while they are at it, for the people who pay to see the movie and buy the overprices popcorn in the theater, they should be given the DVD for free or for some token $1-2.

The needle is moving slightly, I guess. Maybe. Perhaps beyond testing a couple movies here and there, I doubt we’ll be paying an extra _.97 for any of the options any time soon, you?

This creative, clever video mashup of album covers must have taken a long time to put together. I’d say it’s rated PG 13 to R, so keep that in mind when viewing.

Recognized a lot of albums I like. Gotta love the Ozzy part! What do you think?

With Rainbow Six Vegas for the Xbox 360 and an Xbox Vision camera you can map your face onto your character and earn 30 achievement points. Speaking of the number six, it took about that many attempts to get the function to work properly and the results of my face (above and below) were merely ok.

I like games that use the bright lights of Vegas as a backdrop. You might think the action all takes place in Vegas, but it doesn’t, the campaign actually starts in Mexico, then moves to a train station, the mines, the Vegas strip and then the Calypso Casino.

We bought the Limited Edition ($69 USD) which includes a bonus CD with the making of Rainbow Six, a look at the Rainbow Six franchise and more. Not sure the extras are worth the extra 10 bones, but I’m sure it gives the game a little better resale value for those who go that route when their tired of playing.

This isn’t the first virtual world my face has been put in, as I commissioned my face to be put inside Second Life (below). Not sure which version is better the darker Rainbow Six or more jokerish from Batman in SL. If only both could have made me better looking!

A creative use of the Xbox Vision camera and way to customize characters in a game. Would like to see more games do this. I wonder if it works with a picture of a cartoon character like Homer Simpson? Doh!

This Free Hugs Campaign is the story of Juan Mann who found himself homeless and decided to take a sign that said “Free Hugs” into a crowded public area:

And for 15 minutes, people just stared right through me. The first person who stopped, tapped me on the shoulder and told me how her dog had just died that morning. How that morning had been the one year anniversary of her only daughter dying in a car accident. How what she needed now, when she felt most alone in the world, was a hug. I got down on one knee, we put our arms around each other and when we parted, she was smiling.

The accompanying music, a catchy song called “All The Same” by (the strangely appealing titled) sick puppies to the popular YouTube video (over six million views and 13,000+ comments) really hits home, especially with Thanksgiving around the corner.

If you haven’t seen this uplifiting video yet, it’s embedded below.

The Beatles were right, “All We Need is Love.” This is one to pass along to your friends, family, readers and, well, any human being.

Michael Richards [IMDB] who played the jittery Kosmo Kramer in the hit show Seinfeld was getting badgered by a heckler at a show recently when things turned real ugly. Hecklers are standard fare for comedians, especially when the act is going badly so no news there.

But wait.

The exchange between Richards and the hecker seemed to be playing like a Dice Clay attack the heckler deal — though attacking the audience is a risky move in comedy — until Richards starts dropping the N word on the man who just happened to be an African American. The first time he said the word in anger was damaging enough and definitely not funny but then he repeated the word several more times angrily in further exchanges.

The tirade gets downright excruciating to hear, much less watch, and of course the whole thing was caught on tape. You’ll see several people in the audience understandably leaving. I would have walked out of this show too. There wasn’t anything funny or humorous about Richard’s actions (notice I didn’t say “act” because this wasn’t part of Richard’s routine).

Richards has since apologized (Update 2:25pm PST: changed link to news report of apology because YouTube took down the video of Kramer’s apology at CBS request — thanks Forser) and said he isn’t a racist — yeah, right, just say that word when you lose your temper, apologize and it goes away, not — but it is much too late for that. While I’ve personally never understood why people that are African American can call each other the N word and that’s ok (?), it is well understood as being socially reprehensible and extremely racist for those of the opposite color to use that word in almost any context, especially anger.

Richards better take up a new career now. His days as a comedian will not likely rebound from this one and rightly so. While I think labeling people racists gets thrown around a bit too much and too easily these days that is clearly not the case here. Despicable.

Starting this morning off on an uplifiting, inspirational note.

The following is an incredible story of overcoming disability and a true testament of human spirit, attitude and determination. Ben Underwood had both eyes removed at two years old when he got cancer. When he woke up he told his mother he couldn’t see any more. His mother replied that he still had his nose, ears and mouth.

12 years later Ben has used those senses with dolphin-like precision, teaching himself how to do things you’d think eyesight was required like playing foosball, skating, having pillow fights and more, see the video below:

My favorite part? When asked how he could play a videogame, he replied: “They have different voices.”

Giving the Revver video service a try to share this Nintendo Wii unboxed video.

Any other readers check out the Wii yet?

Readers might remember my ill-fated attempt experiment performing karaoke online at Bix.com but did make a couple comedy shorts, which succeeded in receiving more thumbs down and thumbs up votes. I particularly enjoyed feedback like:

“oh wow this video should be baned” - AdrianSchittu
“wow man that is so so so not funny and this is in the comedy section wow you need to think your things over and plus this is not a magic show” - funnyman101

Ok, maybe my first two efforts sucked and didn’t make me that many friends or fans, but look who’s one of my friends? American Idol’s Kimberly Caldwell. Woohoo, neener, neener!

(Actually Caldwell works/worked for Bix, so she made everybody here “friend”)

I was so inspired by this negative energy that I’m working in my head on some new short comedy routines. I’m committed to making a few people in the world at least crack a smile. I love a good challenge.

Apparently, Yahoo does too and has agreed to acquire Bix and see if they can find some American Idol-style talent in the world. They also have a Yahoo Talent search in progress where contest entries end November 27. I wonder if I’ll have enough time to enter? Hmm …

I also just noticed that Bix broke the links to my original comedy skits. I sure hope that wasn’t intentional. That’s a good way to get a really bad rap. And I don’t mean in the Karaoke sense.