PostHeaderIcon Did Big Tech Media Miss the Real iCloud News?


[UPDATE: Confirmed. I have now authorized my 6th computer through iTunes, and an additional iPod Touch. I am now at six computers, and three "mobile devices"]

I've yet to see any mention of it anywhere. In short: Apple announced their "iCloud" product yesterday and the media from Reuters to Macworld to Ars Technica to The Next Web and everyone else who are supposed to be industry pundits and "experts" were just urinating themselves in excitement, all trying to get the word out first and their live-blogging and whatnot. It's about hits on the shitty Flash Adverts on their web pages, you see.

In all their coverage it seems they missed the one real question (for me, anyway) of how Apple managed to placate the labels to allow the number of music file copies per purchase to double.

PostHeaderIcon When tech blog writers write shit...

Why do we not take blogs and so-called "media" like Gawker and GigaOm very seriously at all any more? Because they write crap. Sometimes it's outright bullshit sewage, other times it's pretty plain the author carries an agenda and yet, other times it's plain gullibility, which is what appears the be the proper category for one Matthew Ingram over at GigOm.

Matthew write a rather sympathetic story about developers of a iOS app by the name of "iFlowReader" -  and carries the diatribe of the developer with apparent concern and an evil eye toward Apple for allowing this struggling company to actually make a living... or whatever.

I encourage you to read the artic... er, bleeding-heart diatribe here:
http://gigaom.com/2011/05/11/the-danger-of-playing-in-apples-walled-garden/

Even the headline of the trash-piece is designed to make Apple the eeeviiil entity here: "The Danger of Playing in Apple’s Walled Garden". What laughable garbage.

I posted a rather pointed comment there. However, since comments there are moderated and I certainly don't expect to see my words being allowed through to public consumption, I've reiterated them here:


PostHeaderIcon Why the only competitor to iPad will be HP's Tablet

Google's Android OS is making a lot of waves in the news and that's because it is techno-geeks who hold the interest in it. The pundits who babbled how the iPad will be a failure because it lacks adobe Flash and USB ports and all the techno-crap desktop and laptop computers require. Those techno-geeks just don't understand the masses at large couldn't care any less about that stuff.

Apple has it right: create the technology in a way so the technology disappears and all that is left is the content people want to work with. I'm writing this post on my iPad using an app called Blogsy and I'm loving it. I don't need the big, loud, energy-sucking desktop computer to run a lightweight web browser to write and post it.

The problem Samsung and Motorola and all the rest have is pretty simple: they are relying on someone else to make their hardware work. They must design and build their hardware to meet the specs of someone else's software, then add garbage crap-ware to it in order to set themselves apart, and market their tablets on specs. People don't care about specs anymore. We're tired of specs.

PostHeaderIcon Linden Lab's Conundrum: The Catch-22 of Second Life

There have been cries and proclamations of Second Life's demise since I can remember way back in 2006. Of course many will quickly proclaim just what it is that happens to be killing Second Life off and it ranges all the way from how interactive Linden Lab is with their customers to grid stability to the policies and rules the company introduces and (erratically) enforces.

I don't claim to be an expert and surely much of these things are contributing to the bogging-down of Second Life in terms of user concurrency and just plain old "mind share” out there in the wild open Internet in general. I see the 'problems' facing Linden Lab and surely I have my own reasons as to why Second Life is showing it's age and the patches of rust and crust.

The way I see it: Linden Lab has a catch-22 with Second Life and they have to find a way out of it in order to grow Second Life in terms of users and paying customers. Certainly there is a lot here: coyboy issues, the Lab's ridiculous track record in DMCA support (take-downs AND put-backs!), customer support in general and the utterly abysmal service through the support ticket system.

The problem: the is way too much virtual land in Second Life. The catch-22 being the more land tier is paid on, the more money Linden Lab makes. However, the thinner the user population is spread to the point it is hard to find anyone in a chain-luck hello, my name is..." potential new friend meeting.