>> coming up on "q & a," walt mossberg talks about his weekly program. and then on "washington journal" we'll take your questions and phone calls. . . >> route philanthropy. >> fundraising.

>> hal is c-span funded? 30 years ago, american cable companies created c-span as a private business initiative, no private mandate, no government money. >> this week on q&a, our guest is walt mossberg. >> how is the average person supposed to understand what the column is all about?

>> hopefully the average person will understand it, because i try and have tried since i started writing this column a long time ago to write them in english and write them conversationally. compared to what you write -- you might read on a technical- oriented website, i am stopping to explain terms. i am pretending that i am talking to a smart person, but someone who is not interested in being a technical person. >> what interested you to write about this fire fox? >> web browsing is an enormously important activity engaged by all parts of society , and there needs to be a competition, just like there needs to be a competition in tv

sets or other day wait into a medium. firebox is the principal competitor to microsoft's internet explorer. there is actually a new browser war going on. about 10 years ago there was a browser for -- war between netscape and microsoft. now there is a new war. when anyone bring out a new web browser, there is a lot of interest between my readers. it is a good topic for me to write about. >> what has been your reaction, the fact that you personally after 18 years of writing, 17 years and have had become a personality?

>> i am a personality in a certain world. i can walk down the street in washington and most people have no idea who i am, but it is a little different if i am at a computer trade show where a lot more people know who i am. my reaction is that it comes with the territory, and you certainly understand that as well. >> you had a new york profile and other magazine stories, and one of the things you have been called as a curmudgeon. >> that is commonly used to apply to me. i guess it is because i do not always give everything a good review.

>> i did not think they were quite as good as advancing their previous techniques as they work. i picked up on the title of curmudgeon. >> how often do you write? >> i write to the real columns per week, and might also have a terrific of woman called kathleen brett who writes a third column that edit, but do not right. it is really her work. i write two and said it won every week. when the spirit moves me i write a blog post. >> back in 1995 we did an interview, and i want to show you what he sounded like an look like and what we were talking about and talk about the change. >> that sounds frightening. >> let's take someone like me. i happen to as just bought my

first ever computer not more than three months ago. it is one of those little laptops. i can go home and plugged in or take it anywhere i want to and find out the c-span schedule. what about someone like me, what would you tell me if i had never touched a computer? why should i even have 1? >> the first thing i tell everyone and i write this is figure out what you want to do with it. do you want to become computer literate is not good for you. if you are busy, you're smart about what you know, and you do not necessarily want to pick up a second career unless it is your hobby. if the first question is, what do i want to do with it? you want to be able to log on to

america online. you want -- you are traveling to some extent so you want something portable. once you get that figured out, then i think you need to go for the best combination of price and power of, but one factor that people do not consider -- consider is how quickly after you turn it on can you get into doing productive work without having to learn a lot of technical babble? >> reaction? >> does -- those glasses were pretty big. [laughter] i think both of us would have the same point of view today. if you bought a computer at that time, i would point out that the personal computer what mass market in 1977. that was in 1974.

-- 1984. you still want to do a lot of the same things. i still say the same things to people. the most important thing is what do you, however i am talking to, want to do with the computer? and there are different kinds of computers, things like that iphone, which is actually a computer, not really a phone. it is a computer that happens to make phone calls. it has more power i am sure that the laptop you bought back in 1994 or 1995. >> i was impressed that we can get our schedule out. there is another clip i want to show you from that interview that uses language a product and you tell us what is happened to these.

>> america online is the most economical. for 1995 you get five hours. -- $19.95 you can get five hours. on prodigy, you pay $14.95 per month. the bulletin boards start costing you extra. you did a bunch of basic services, but after that it may cost you $8 per hour. if you have a high-speed modem, $16 per a role -- per hour. >> prodigy died. that was a deserved death because they were more of a 1- way broadway service, not very attuned to users.

copy serv was acquired by a well. -- acquired by aol. aol. time warner and the merger fell apart. -- aol bought time warner and the merger fell apart. it certainly has no where near the power it had in those days. one of the interesting things, if you notice when i was explaining the pricing, it was needed pricing. you get so many hours for so many dollars and maybe so many features. just a few years after that, at the world wide web became open to people and came into existence. except for the sea every month for access -- except ofor the

fee every month, you are not metered by time or by what you are doing for the most part. this is right at the heart of by a gigantic debate and gigantic business issue right now. >> which is what? >> si issue is if you are producing a service or content like the wall street journal also c-span. -- the issue is if you are producing a service, can you charge people for a? can you sell enough advertising to make your profit cover the cost? there is a big debate. we at the wall street journal are almost alone in taking the points of view that we're doing

a mixed model. some things we have our free and some require a subscription. >> what does it cost to subscribe on-line to the wall street journal? >> i honestly do not know. i think it is around $100 per year, but i think it can be a little less. they run all first. -- the run offers. >> last time i saw it was something like 800,000 subscribers. >> something like that. >> what has changed in your life, besides the fact that report murdoch owns the wall street journal? >> i have been very lucky in my work life and personal life. my kids are grown up.

when is when to get married next year. one is 31 is 27. -- one is 30 and one is 27. i do have an excellent colleague who works for me and gives me a female and young girl perspective which is helpful -- younger perspective, which is helpful. probably the most interesting thing that i have done is about seven years ago another wall street colonel -- journal columnist and i started a conference. that brings together the leaders of the technology

industry in the media industry to talk about these issues like how you make money? does everything have to be free? is there an advertising market online? and what are the technologies of the future? that conference has been very successful and spawned a website that i now co-produce. i still write my columns. they still are my main job. i still enjoy doing them. i am also now a little bit of an entrepot mural. -- entrepreneur. this has been an interesting experience. >> the conference was conducted when in june this year? >> it is always conducted right after memorial day. it was at the end of may. >> care is some video. i think it is from this year.

-- here is some video. this has been in the new yorker. let's watch this. >> on my way down here, i drove down in my minivan type of car. my mom comes here and hands out fliers. i hope she was all nice to you -- i hope she was nice to you all. i was asking her if she treated -- if she tweeted. >> here we are in california. do you twitter? >> are you crazy?

>> what do you think of twitter? >> i do not want people to know what i am doing. [laughter] >> what would you tweak? -- tweet? [laughter] >> lucky them. [laughter] [applause] >> some people think people like us in the media are elitist, but we're with the people. >> the apple does not fall far from the tree. >> did she use a flip camera? >> we gave away a slip camera at every one of our conferences this year.

>> did we get a good view of what her mother is like? >> she is spicy, smart, not technical. as far as i know she does not use a computer. >> how much have you heard her response to things like twitter? >> one of the great fun things about writing about technology is there is something new all of the time. some of these are just gimmicks and some stick. social networking is something that is going to stick, but has some different forms and people try their hands at different ways of doing it. for those of watching this who do not know, it is a social networking service where you really are sending out 140 characters of information. in our program but for the

conference are a little pierides of debt two founders of twitter -- in our program but were information that were about the two founders of twitter. some report news and public events. maybe your c-span viewers who saw some interview on here treated a comment -- tweeted a comments. >> when did the started? they are not making any money. >> it started a couple of years ago. it is unlike myspace or facebook or even going back to the really old chat rooms, you

do not develop friends, if you develop ball worse. -- you develop followers. if they think your tweets are interesting, they follow you. they have been given money by investors, and they have plenty of it to build it and have employees. they have not started charging anything for it. we have questioned them quite a bit at our conference because our conference is a journalistic conference where no one is allowed to make a speech or slohow slides. we just interview them on stage. we mentioned many times, how are

you going to make money? they said there is may be some way with users permission to find some way to make money using that, but they were vague about it. >> they did not say that they knew they were born to make money on it -- they did not say that they knew they were going unhear to make money. >> the users do all the work. it is called user generated content. same with youtube. those are done by average people. if they are not producing any content by twitter. it is expensive and it does take some work, and it is not simple

to keep the system going. i do not mean they do nothing, they certainly do a lot of under the hood of staff but the actual creation of content is dead by the users. -- the creation of content is done by users. >> walt mossberg is not shy about expressing his opinions. he helped recruit kara swisher and moved her to silicon valley. >> what is their? >> it is probably the biggest concentration of technology. intel, a hewlett-packard, apple, calm, and to go, all of these companies are there. >> you stay here because?

>> i stay here because i want it consumer focus. i go to silicon valley quite often. i am there six or seven times per year. i know how to drive through the streets almost as well as washington, but i was considering leif -- i was extremely concerned that if i lived among the industry i would become the industry mind-set. it is not that there is anything evil about that, it is just that i wanted to stay in the consumer-mind-set. >> when she in macon smith, a googler executive, decided to marry, sweatshirts, told me her mother was troubled by the idea of a day wedding. -- gay wedding. we were having dinner and she was been difficult. if she was arguing with me. i was getting really

uncomfortable. walt to occur down like i have never seen anyone take someone else down. my mother was shocked and he was relentless in not letting her off the hook. explain that. >> i wish she hadn't told that to the new yorker for that story. i like kara's mom. we are on good terms today and on good terms before that. i came to the difference of a friend is all. these things happens to families. she is crazy about the kids. she takes care of them quite a lot. they work heavy our jobs. -- heavy hour jobs.

she is a wonderful grandmother. >> here again your personal life is being written about in your desist technology writer. although, they say you make a lot of money. >> i am just a technology writer, and you are just a television guy and yet everyone knows you, particularly those that are interested in what c- span covers and. many people are interested because there interested in what i write about. >> give me an idea of why companies have come to you desperately wanting your endorsement? do you just push back? >> i do not endorse putting a blurb on a box of something.

people can run at quotes from my reduce -- can run quotes ufrom my reviews. this would be unethical if i did that. it is just like being a movie reviewer. i am an opinion as. i am not a reporter. i used to be a reporter at one time. i am a columnist who is paid to be objective. i tell people what i think about them. what are the strengths of this? what are the weaknesses? i have a big audience, so people want to put their product in front of me.

i will spend the rest of the day meeting with companies and looking at their products. some i will write about and some i will not. some i will give a good review to and some middle of the road, and once in awhile i give a very bad review. nobody tries to muscle me, they just pitch me. they will say here is this new gadget or website or new computer, whatever it is, and i will take a look at it. >> do you feel that it can make or break products? >> i did not say that. i do not believe that. it is perfectly obvious that if you are someone whose name is well-known, let's say a movie reviewer indoor movie review

came in a widely read publication that if you like a movie, that will help ticket sales, and did you do not like a movie, that will probably hurt them. that is sort of the analogy here. if i say firebox is the best browser and i recommend you use it and not use this other one, some percentage of people who would not have otherwise done so will go and did it. if i say this is the worst is web browser, some percentage of people who might have used it, will not use it. >> -- go back to what we were talking about earlier, aol has not succeeded the way they intended to. what do you think will not make it? what indication do you have that some of these companies will

not make it financially? >> i do not cover the finances of these companies. i think it is important for technology fans to understand when they are thinking about investments, that just because you love the product or just because it looks like a cool product or all of your friends are using it, does not mean that the company is managing the money correctly or is planning the next product correctly or is doing all of the boring non- technical financial and management things. maybe they made a bad deal for chips. there are millions of these factors. this is why i have never, in my 17 years of writing this column, given any sort of investment advice and why i am not going to start here today. i would say that most of the technical products that are out there today will fail in the

sense that they will not become megahits and they will be replaced by something else. a few of them are landlocked -- landmark products. the original i.b.m. computers and apple products were game changes. things like that. based -- those do not come along very often. >> i want to show you a clip. >> in order to do the column i have the two most common types of computers. this is running microsoft windows, which is a system that makes ibm-compatible easier to use. this is an apple macintosh, which is running a macintosh system. i use both of them.

i try at software for both kinds of computers. >> of these computers operate differently? >> these computers have a different operating systems. the program will not run on an ibm-compatible and vice versa. what is been happening is that apple's approach, which was to use the mouse and icons and to use a lot of plain english commands, that approach has been adopted widely on the ibm pc through windows. you end up with very similar looking computers now. even though a program that is made for one will not run on the other, many companies make identical versions of the same

program said that if are running microsoft word 4 processor and windows and microsoft word word-processing and macintosh, they look almost the same. >> what has happened to the compaq, apple, the windows? >> one thing that i was saying there is still true today. that tw operating systems and religious rivals here are awful and microsoft -- the two most prominent operating systems is a apple and microsoft. third-party companies can produce companies that run on them, but apple does not own or make any money on them. microsoft, which is a much bigger company, makes no

hardware, no computers i should say. they make a small amount of hardware. a principal in make microsoft windows still, which is still the dominant operating system. microsoft office is what they make. that includes a word and excel -- includes word and excel. compaq is owned by stuart packard now appear yen -- is owned by its hewlett-packard. some people say they were within 90 days of chapter 11. in 1997 steve jobs, who had

been one of their founders had been thrown out by the guy they brought in to run the company was brought back. he has revived the company pretty spectacular rate. -- pretty spectacular leap. >> your paper has covered a lot of steve jobs and his illness. if he was not there, what impact do you think it would have on the company? >> it is very hard to say. he is one of the unusual chief executive officers who tends to be very detail oriented and a product that. he has his hands in a lot of things. -- he is a detail oriented and a product guy.

on the other hand, he has not designing the next macintosh. they happen to have a brilliant designer and design team. and they have a coo who has run the company in his medical absence. he has done very well. i imagine over time the company will change, because he is such a strong personality and strong presence. i do not know you could say the company would fail. it might just be a little different. i do not know. >> what would you have right now in your possession, meaning everything from your laptop -- >> i will not endorse a bunch of products. i am not going to do that. i use every day a windows computer and a macintosh.

i use different ones. i personally owned and what the journal on on my behalf maybe eight or nine computers, roughly split between windows and macintosh. some are laptops. a diminishing number our desktops. -- are desktops. i do carry an iphone right now. i have carried other brands in the past. i may carry other brands in the future. >> tell us about a netbook. >> this is a marketing term at the moment. it may someday be a different kind of animal. it is a specially small and inexpensive type of laptop. if you go to best buy and sell

you want to buy one -- and say that you want to buy one, they will sell you a small laptop running windows x p. it will not cost you very much money. >> we are in a terrible economy and people do want something smaller and lighter, people who travel generally. the appeal of something that is only a few hundred dollars and about half the weight of what you might have had before, is strong. they are doing very well. >> on your website you give recommendations and advice. >> this week i thought i would talk about a handful of the ones that i find myself using most often on my iphone and

recommended to you. let me tick off some of them in this video. the first one i would like to mention is called tweetie. be able to use it on the go. there are a bunch of twitter applications, but this is the one i'd like the best. i think it does a great job of reading other posts. you can do searches and other functions within twitter. another closely related application and social networking application is facebook. this is officially produced by facebook itself. it covers all of the core functions of the web-based facebook service. you can update your photos.

dealing with internal facebook email and chat. another application is the kindle ap. this performs the basic functions of the kindle hardware that amazons sells for $360. it can allow you to read on your iphone hossein kindle books that you can read on your kindle device. -- it allows you to read on your iphone and the same kindle books that you can read on your kindle device. i was recommending iphone applications. the most, i think the most

important, car sported bell is shoot -- hardware technology is the rise of the hand-held computer, the super smart phone. unlike the netbook which is really a size and price play, this is more of a computer. the most famous one is that apple iphone, which i do care read. any of these have more powers than the computers in my office in 1995. the cool things of all of these -- this is the palm pre. this is the nokia and 97. -- nokia n97.

this is the first really good smart phone. these iphone class smart phones, and there are others, are essentially hand-held computers that happened to make phone calls. one of the cool things is that they are also like the windows computer and mac computer, they are platforms for people to write software for. useful software that can get things done, entertain you, whether it is a spreadsheet or data for the c-span -- or the c- span schedule. ap is short for applications.

after one year of allowing applications on the iphone product, they now have 65,000 applications available, which is astonishing. they have been down loaded by people 1.5 billion times and that year. many of these are free. a lot of others cost them, but some cost as much as $40. it is quite astonishing. you saw me talking about some of the applications that i used that i find most useful. >> where do you find out what they do? >> apple has an application store. it can be reached on the phone by touching an icon, which brings up a catalog of these applications and describes them. in that video use all screen shots of kindle, and those are

in the catalog. you get a chance to read about them and what it will do. by the way, you could do the same thing on your windows or macintosh computer, but the itunes program there is a section in that program which if you click on it is a catalog of applications for your iphone. >> did you do that on your own? >> did you think the production values were fabulous? >> i am not sure it matters when you are looking for information. >> i write my column, and when i have finished filing my column, i then go and sit down in front of one of the computers in my house which has a built in camera, fire up a program that

records video, and i talked into that camera as you saw me do there and then i sent the raw video to york. -- i send the raw video to new york. then they put into a video, putting my name to identify me as an sure it will happen on this program. i could do that on the computer myself, but in my case i send it to them in new york. they do all of those things and then send it back to me. i look at it to make sure it all seems right and then we publish it on the web. >> what days of the weekend they

read your column? >> if they are a printer reader, might two columns -- my two columns appear on thursday. the appear on the web the night before. usually around 9:00 eastern on either the wall street journal website or the website of the wall street journal loans, but i which i own, which is called allthingsd.com. they can also read another website. the column is on the web tuesday night on the same two web sites. >> we have video of her.

>> this is katie brett with the wall street journal. it can be really frustrating to cite -- tied in a search online only to receive hundreds of results. this week i tried three tools that you could use to improve your search is on line. one is from the search giant google and it is called a search wiki. it only works when you are signed into your google account. it is something that appears on screen when you conduct a regular google search. it includes air rose beside each search results. -- it includes arrows beside each search results.

the search results go to the top of the screen. that means you think it is important for you. >> where did you find her? deegan she came to me from the university of delaware. she is still a young woman. --s he cam she came to me from e university of delaware. she has turned out to be terrific. she is not a full-fledged reporter at the wall street journal. she is an employee of mine. she is great. >> go back to all things digital conference. where was that helps? >> that was held in california. it is just outside of seed diego in a hotel there. -- just outside of san diego and

a hotel there. anyone can come. people began his invitation only, but it is not. it is a $5,000 a ticket to attend the conference. we tend to have a lot of repeat people who enjoy it. it is a combination of what is on stage in what my learning from the speakers and a lot of networking. there have been a lot of business deals done in the hallways of that conference. sometimes we do not find out about it until years later. some people say we negotiated this big merger starting their three years ago. we say we would be rich if we can get a cut of that, but of course we can not. >> how many days? >> it stretches over three days,

but not three full days. it starts in the evening of the first full day with a single interview and dinner. and then and anti year very long next day. ed than two-thirds of the dead the next day. >> does anyone say no to you? >> have you called up and ask them to come and they said no. >> we have not had a case where someone has agreed to come and then build on us. -- then bailed on us. we certainly have had cases where people say they would rather not speak. this year we had a c zereo day n nokia and that was about aga for

year deal. my boss after he bought the wall street journal, it took me three months to convince him to become a speaker. >> why do you think you have become so valuable? >> you would have to ask the people that run the newspaper. i tried to do a good job. i have a following. most of the viewers find what i write to be useful. beyond that, you're asking the wrong guy. >> put a column in there and the last 17.5 years, why have thiham this becomes such an important subjects?

>> we are aware of -- are living through one of the biggest times of technological change. it is confusing for people. making phone calls, getting the news, taking pictures, all of these things are changing. it is useful to people, i think, do have some of this explain to them. i think of myself as a subcontractor. people have contacted me to explain some of this. i give them a sense of what it is like to use its and does it work. this kind of journalism is very popular across many publications. not only in technology but in other fields.

we have been very successful with columns on investment and health. >> is there a printed newspaper in 10 years? >> i do not know the answer to that. it certainly is changing faster than what i would have set three years ago. part of that is hastened by the overall economic climate, but the point isn't to say but newspapers or state television stations. the point is we need to have journalism and journalists. it does not matter to me if people are reading be on a screen or on a dead tree. it just does not matter. >> what is the difference between the number of visitors on newspaper and website?

>> the circulation is about 2 million. >> i cannot tell you how many people read my column. the traffic is quite respectable of the web. -- on the web. it is easy to measure as well. i would guess that partly because i am writing about technology, i'd probably get a higher percentage of people than some other journalists might reading the on the web as opposed to reading me in print. >> what kind of column gets the most response? >> columns that touch of brianne new, much anticipated products. -- columns that touch on brand new, much anticipated products.

anything from apple, they tend to have a tremendous interest. they have passionate customers. several other companies like that. >> i can remember a column that i read on snagfilms.com. do you have any idea? i know you read about it before it was even ruled out. you have any idea how they have done? -- do you ahhave any idea how they have done? >> it is our first anniversary tomorrow. , but i think they manage to distribute hundreds of films last year. >> i know they have an advertisement now. what about, i can feel your

excitement when i do -- when you do something like iphone 3gs? are you as excited about it as you right -- write? >> i am very excited when technology produces something for average people that is beautifully designed. i think the iphone falls in that category. not only the iphone. i am excited about the palm pre. this is a new class of device that changes the way people live, without requiring them to learn a lot of technical stuff. that always gives me excited. that is a really important category right now. i thoroughly enjoy writing about it. >> if you could have your way and technology and science and all of that, where do what all

of this to go? -- where do you want all of this to go? >> i wanted to remain human focus. skype issing -- i think having people's opinions, whose opinions we might not have been able to read in the old days or watch in the old days, is really a treat and privilege. there are loads of smart people out there who do not have a job at the wall street journal or on c-span and those people have a lot to contribute. it is great. one of the reasons that i do use twitter is i am interested in what they have to say. >> here is a clip of depth walt mossberg personality.

>> it has grown. what are you 32 million al? -- 32 million now? >> a i am going to say it is 32 million. >> those are the founders of twitter talking about how many people follow them. >> i did not see any reason why they should not say how many people follow them. i think people should disclose as much as reasonable. to me, that was a reasonable thing to disclose. we have a lot of power centers and our society, and i worry about the power at the companies

whose products have a lot of control over our lives and to we depend on for a lot, but i also worry about world's hunger. i worry about the economy. i worry about the planet. i worry about politicians and bankers and people in the media as well having outside influence sometimes and doing the wrong things. i worry about a bunch of stuff like that. >> how much longer do you plan to do this? >> i have no plans to stop doing it. unless the journals that i should stop doing it. i have no indication that they feel that way. i will do as long as people keep breeding pit -- keep reading it.

i tend not to broadcast what i am going to do next in advance. >> can you remember the worst kickback you got since you have been doing this since 1991 from any manufacturer? >> there have been a couple that have tried to get me fired. it has not happened recently, but in the beginning. there were a couple that tried to get me fired. i actually did not find out about those cases until much later, because editors refused and did not tell me about it until later. >> walt mossberg, we thank you very much. >> i am delighted to be here. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009]

>> for a dvd copy, call the number listed on your screen. 43 transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us on the web. -- for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us on the web. coming up, it is washington journal. we will take your phone calls and questions. later, the u.s. house. this morning on washington journal, 8 discussion on health care reform with judy feder. later,