SMS billing has been popular in Europe for a long time now, but it never really caught on for adult sites in the US. Now with the proliferation of QR codes on billboards, ads, app stores etc., consumers have become more and more familiar with the principle behind it.

Adding a QR code to your billing page (or really anywhere on your pay site) could potentially increase your membership signups because it’s super easy and quick to use: hold your phone’s camera to the code, let the scanner app scan it, and you’re done.  The QR code could either be linked to the consumer’s credit card, or be linked to his mobile phone bill.  I’d suggest there should be a confirmation screen to make sure the customer is aware he’ll be charged a membership fee by clicking “Ok”.

Of course all this would require the participation of banks, merchant accounts, and/or phone companies. But see how this would make a lot of sense?

I’m actually surprised our industry hasn’t embraced this yet. I don’t know of any legal reasons or technical limitations that would prevent QR codes from working as an alternative billing method.

image credit: this page

Ideally, Facebook and Twitter would implement this directly into their services. Second best option is a third-party app to do all this. Thoughts?

Apparently Google’s standards for its advertisers isn’t as strict as one would think. I’ve spotted this ad for WifiRobin, a site that sells WiFi hacking equipment.  But then why am I surprised?

We’ve clearly become a society of thieves, since P2P, illegal tube sites and so forth are now talked about (even in mainstream media) with a wink-wink-nudge-nudge kind of attitude.

Still…I think offering a service that hacks into protected WiFi networks isn’t really something that should be allowed to advertise through AdSense…or anywhere. Thoughts?

This may come as a positive surprise to those who have been watching the Apple-Adobe-Flash feud closely.

If you recall, one of the issues with videos on the web is that there really is no single format standard. Flash is about as close to a standard as can be, but with the Apple-gadget eco system refusing to work with it, a big chunk of the web is just not available to iPod/iPhone/iPad owners. H.264 is what Apple and cohorts want to replace Flash with on HTML5 based sites, except there are some major problems with that.

Now imagine a video standard that can be played on HTML5 web sites, but will also work through Flash if so desired, and will be supported by Firefox, Opera, and Chrome almost immediately, with the other browser guys presumably to follow shortly as well. Now imagine this format to look about as good as H.264 video, except it’s free and there are no licensing issues to deal with. Ever.

That’s WebM.

WebM will utilize the VP8 codec, which is a codec developed by the company On2. On2 created the ubiquitous VP6 codec (used a lot in videos encoded to Flash) and was bought by Google a while ago. Now Google has announced it will release this codec for free. That by itself is great news but the juicy part is this:

VP8 (video) will be combined with the Vorbis audio codec and the Matroska container format to create this new web standard, WebM. You’ll notice that all these codecs are free. If you worked with these codecs you’ll also notice that the quality is excellent.

Google also announced that it will begin converting all YouTube videos to this new WebM format going forward. Brightcove is about to do the same. So the largest video site on the planet is moving ahead with this codec. WebM is backed by Google, Mozilla, and a growing number of other big guys. Yes, WebM will be the new web standard.

Some people seem to think that HTML5 by itself can play video but that’s not the case. HTML5 does not have some magic little super codec embedded. It merely uses the <video> element, which in turn then points to one or multiple versions of a video. H.264 is just one format one can choose to publish that video in. But this is not mandatory.

Personally, I understand where Jobs is coming from, and I’d love strict standards for video. Makes my job easier. But I also know that HTML5 and that elusive one-codec-for-video standard is far from realistic right now. I think for right now, a device does need to support Flash in order to get the full web experience. Everything else is just watered down at this point, and I’m not paying for watered down web. I’m liking what Android is doing for the smartphone market.

Your thoughts?

Smoothing skin, removing some tattoos, thinning the midriff/thighs/etc., and getting rid of some imperfections – you know the drill. But sometimes we tend to retouch too much. Or not what matters. And here’s the cool part, Candies released the before and after versions of some of the Britney Spears photos. They even made a nice animated GIF of Britney’s photos to show the pre- and post- Photoshop results.

If you’ve started to retouch the hell out of photos, this is a great reminder of how subtle changes go a long way. Don’t overdo it, but focus on the important areas. Look at the before and after photos as long as you like (for educational purposes, of course) and spot the differences.

This is actually a great opportunity to learn how the pros retouch babes – or rather, what they retouch, and what not.

According to Apple Insider, Apple has already sold out its initial stock of iPad models via pre-orders. Sure, Apple may purposely have kept its stock fairly low to achieve the “we’re sold out already ‘cuz everybody wants our stuff” – aura. But according to Wall Street Journal sources familiar with this whole gig, well over one million iPads are on track to be sold over the next 3 months.

That’s one million customers spending upwards of $499 for a product they don’t really need.

This is just the latest example of how in this recession there are still plenty of people willing to part with their cash for what they want - as long as the hype is good enough and you can make them think your product/service is what they really want. Again, it’s about wanting, not needing.

I remember when, during the worst of our ‘recession’, the parking lots of upscale fashion malls in Scottsdale and Phoenix were completely full, and folks were still running around with their  shopping bags as usual. The media made it sound like everyone in the country would be living on the streets soon, but then you see this and figure out that just like iPads, a recession is pretty much what you make it appear to be. If you hype it enough, people will ‘buy’ it – regardless of what ‘it’ is.

Except the iPad actually has more naysayers than the recession, as I had pointed out earlier. Everyone ‘accepts’ that there’s a recession. But when the iPad was demo’ed by Steve Jobs, a lot of folks quickly turned to online forums and pointed out the glaring issues (no Flash, no multi-tasking, etc.) It doesn’t matter because those consumers that purchase an iPad right after launch are  generally not the same consumers that find reasonable problems with an item and make a calculated need vs.want/ or cost/benefit analysis. They want it, they buy it. And that’s who you’ll want to market to.

This is huge. I’ve been waiting for this for four years since I’ve migrated all my workstations over to Windows 64bit. Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, while a fantastic, tremendously improved program, is still only 32bit, and so is the encoding software, Adobe Media Encoder.

Having those be 64bit will make a big difference on so many levels.

Adobe CS5 will be officially announced on April 12. If you wish to register for the online  Adobe CS5 launch event seminar you can do so here.

Yesterday, Cox increased the speeds for Premier plan customers. Upload speeds were increased to 4 or 5 Mbps, downloads increased to about 25Mbps. Unfortunately Cox messed up and didn’t apparently test that their upgrade would work all modems on their approved list. The D-Link DCM-202 has massive problems with uploads on Cox’ new setup – it disconnects if you are trying to upload anything. Once you stop the upload attempt, the modem will reconnect. Downloads should be fine but even those might be affected.

Cox didn’t feel it’s necessary to at least acknowledge this problem on their web site so many customers were, like me, totally caught off-guard about it and have to figure this out on their own. The DCM-202 is one of the most widely used modems so there are probably lots and lots of customers who are undoubtedly freaking out right now. Lovely service, Cox.

Cox’ new infrastructure works best with DOCSIS 3.0 modems. The D-Link DCM-202 and almost all other currently available modems however are only DOCSIS 2.0 compliant. Apparently, D-Link is the only modem manufacturer that currently has these problems on Cox’ new deal. Cox and D-Link supposedly are working together to figure out what the problem is.

Since you’ll likelyneed your internet to actually work right now and not when Cox and D-Link get around to working things out you will need to get a different cable modem. Luckily, you can buy any common cable modem (for example, the Linksys CM-100 you’ll find at Target and Staples works just fine) – just don’t buy another D-Link DCM 202. It just won’t work.

Ideally you’ll purchase Motorola’s SB6120 modem though – it’s the only DOCSIS 3.0 compliant modem Cox can work with (disregard the Cisco modem they have on their list – according to a rep I spoke to, that one is not supported right now either). The Motorola SB 6120 also one of the few DOCSIS 3.0 modems currently available on the market. But you might need to order that one online – I was unable to get one at any of the Fry’s Electronic stores or three other electronic places I went to. It’s sold out everywhere apparently, at least at the time of this writing.

So summary: if you’re on Cox Premier and have the D-Link DCM-202 go out right now and buy a different cable modem. I hope this helps you and saves you hours on the phone with tech support and running around town trying to find the SB6120.