I am joking, but I enjoyed reading that Seth Godin had come to the realization this morning that products - of all stripes - are too complicated these days (Seth tried washing his clothes in a washing machine with 125 different settings).

Seth ponders whether “good enough” might be the next big idea.

The team over at 37signals would certainly agree. They have staked their future on the notion. And it seems to be working.

One note though, “good enough” will smack of mediocrity to some. Perhaps “simplicity” gets to the heart of it. Very few would demand a complicated product. But every one thinks they deserve great (which is the perceived as the opposite of “good enough”).

According to Google Trends, it looks like we have been running neck and neck since 2004.

Steven Soderbergh is set to release his newest movie, Bubble, on January 27 in the theaters, on DVD and on HDTV simultaneously.

Soderbergh makes a great point in his interview with Xeni:

Name any big-title movie that’s come out in the last four years. It has been available in all formats on the day of release. It’s called piracy. Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, Ocean’s Eleven, and Ocean’s Twelve - I saw them on Canal Street on opening day. Simultaneous release is already here. We’re just trying to gain control over it.

I remember reading a while back that Mark Cuban has been planning to pull of this stunt for a while. Wait a minute…

Yep. This was from an interview in 2003 with… Xeni Jardin. Mark owns Landmark Theaters and HDNet. In the interview he talks about simultaneous releases. I bet he is doing this with Soderbergh.

Yep. Cuban is the Executive Producer

I have just been introduced to the AIM away message culture. I have been using AIM for several years now, but only in the last 2 weeks or so did I learn how to leave an away message. A quick perusal of my friends away messages alerts me to the following;

1. One friend is doing homework
2. Another is at dinner
3. One is in the shower
4. Another seems to have gotten into a little bit of trouble at the bar last night…
5. An away message chain (i.e. one persons away message begins the sentence and points to another user’s away message, wherein more of the sentence is provided before pointing yet to another one… etc.) lets me know that another friend had a bit too much to drink last night.
6. Lastly, another friend is watching teevee.

I don’t know what to make of it. On the one hand, I love the precise nature of the messages. I know where to find people if I need them. But do I really need to know that my friend is in the shower? And more importantly, does she need me to know? And if I am at dinner or doing homework, I don’t want to be interrupted.

I decided to test the power of the away messages last week. I was going for a nightcap at the bar across the street and I used my first ever away message:

I am having a drink at that place I drink…

Over the next half hour, 4 of my friends appeared, and admitted that they had seen the away message and thought it sounded like a good idea. I don’t know what this means for the future of communication, the jury is still out on whether I will come to think of AIM as an indispensable tool or a prison (more on my thoughts regarding cell phones later). But the fact that AIM effortlessly allowed a spontaneous gathering to happen in the real world with very real conversation and very real libation is a good sign.