SMUG Social Media University Global

Lamenting a Loss…a Little

Several SMUGgles anticipated my devastation at today’s news that Cisco is shutting down its Flip camera business.

Or at least they thought I would be interested, since I have written so frequently about the Flip, starting with this review in 2008. I had posts on:

Using a Flip as an alternate audio source for podcasting and to get still images
A peek at the Mino
Video of my son-in-law channeling Ariel from The Little Mermaid and demonstrating the rapid temperature drop when I backed the car out of the garage on a January morning
A Super Bowl Ad I produced using the Flip
A Chancellor’s Choice award presented to the Flip
8 Steps to Sustainable Blogging
Meredith Gould’s status as a great humanitarian for returning my Flip after I left it on the podium at a presentation in Philadelphia, and
A comparison between the Flip HD and the Kodak Zi8

You get the idea. It’s no secret I love the straightforward simplicity of the Flip. Others have cited the external microphone jack on the Kodak. I don’t hate the Kodak, but the flippy thing feels flimsier, and you need to buy a flash memory card. The Flip just comes ready to go.

Or at least it used to.

So what do I think?

First, this is a classic case of the disruptive technology being disrupted by others, in line with what Clayton Christensen writes about in his Innovator’s Dilemma series. The Flip “wasn’t good enough” for the best customers of Sony, and so Sony ceded the low end of the market. Eventually Pure Digital (which Cisco bought for over $500 million) kept improving the Flip until it became, for most people, more than good enough, including HD video. And certainly a better value than the old tape-based cameras.

Now the Flip has all sorts of competitors to provide video on the go, including various smart phones for which the “not good enough” stage is quickly passing.

I’m not going to get into the business decisions of Cisco, and whether it could have spun the business off or sold it to someone. I’ve got to believe that if Cisco management thought they could gain something by selling the business instead of laying off 500 employees, they would have done it.

One upshot is the Flip is going to become the generic term for this type of camera. Instead of a Flip camera that’s a brand, we will refer to flip cameras.

What will I do?

First, I might buy another Flip Ultra HD while I still can. It’s not like they wear out or will magically quit working because production is shutting down. Batteries are rechargeable, and you can also use standard AAs.

I also might consider upgrading my iPhone. I’m on a 3G. I didn’t get the 3GS and haven’t taken the plunge for the iPhone 4. My phone doesn’t take video, and since my AT&T contract expired almost a year ago, I’m free to explore options. I might just wait for the next version, since they seem to come out in the Summer.

But mainly, I’ll probably get a little nostalgic. The Flip made a huge difference for me. I’ve recorded a lot of my kids’ basketball games, first in SD and then HD. I’ve had a great experience with the Flip, and it has made turnaround on video shoots almost instantaneous. It seems odd that the most popular video camera in the world isn’t going to be made anymore.

One thing I know for certain, though, is that the demise of the Flip isn’t going to make flip video any less prevalent. Low-cost consumer-grade video is going to continue improving in quality and getting cheaper. It will just be done under a different brand name. And flip will become the generic term.

What’s your favorite Flip story?

Bringing the Revolution to ‘Bama

By that I mean the state and not the president, and with no distinction between fans of the Crimson Tide and the Auburn Tigers. I’m delighted this morning to be presenting from a distance with the Alabama Healthcare Public Relations and Marketing Society and the Alabama Healthcare Human Resources Society. I’ve embedded my slides below for use during the presentation, and that way it’s also available for participants to review later.

Bringing it to 'Bama

View more presentations from Lee Aase

Hitting the Links

Spring comes a little later to Minnesota than it does to the lower latitudes, but we hit an important milestone this weekend, as I was able to go golfing with my middle son, Joe. Here he is about to take his first tee shot yesterday (click to enlarge):

What you see on the right is the frozen creek. And while most of the course was in fairly good shape (though still quite brown), there were a few addition “traps” around some of the greens:

Of course we were playing Winter rules, so landing in the snowbank wouldn’t have been a problem. But Joe was actually aided by the remnants of Winter on the 14th hole. He had sliced his drive, and then had to cross a body of (mostly) water. He didn’t hit it well, and it headed straight for the pond.

Fortunately for him, his ball hit one of the ice floes and skipped off to land safely on the other side, setting him up for a nice approach shot to the green:

No particular social media lesson here, except that having an iPhone (or other camera phone) along makes it easy to share fun moments that will become cherished memories. (And not just because I beat Joe yesterday.)