Broadstuff Blog
the weblog of broadband media / quadruple play /web 2.0 /mobile media consultancy Broadsight www.broadsight.com
Updated: 19 min 55 sec ago
Rotten Apples
Have been tres busy this week, hence no posts - but the non-admission of a design error on the iPhone 4 by Apple this week has been very amusing, on a number of fronts:
Form f*cked Function
The Beautiful Device got in the way of efficient Antenna design, essentially allowing Antenna attenuation to be added to by a 100 - 220 lb soft bag of salt water. Not good (If, as may even be the case, it was because they had no wireless engineers, then this is even scarier.
Pride Goeth before a #FAIL
What us nore intereting is that they must - MUST (surely) - have seen this result in testing before launch, so it is interesting to speculate why the launched regardless - after all the evental sticking plaster (that would work too...) was hardly rocket science or costly, and yet the impact of such an error is surely huge compared to whatever benefits were gained by launching at the time
How to win friends and influence people the Apple Way
The attempt to recover essentialy by blaming the users for the way they held it, or for whining, or for being hundred pound saltbags was an..."interesting" strategy. It plays well to the fanbois, but outside of that sanctum less well methinks.
Thats 3 strikes in rapid succession - what does this say about what is going on within Apple, one wonders?
Anyway, policy in Broadstuff Towers is to be a laggardly Early Adopter - always wait 6 months while The Market (aka the suckers who buy early) irons out the bugs (and beside, the price usually drops too).
Form f*cked Function
The Beautiful Device got in the way of efficient Antenna design, essentially allowing Antenna attenuation to be added to by a 100 - 220 lb soft bag of salt water. Not good (If, as may even be the case, it was because they had no wireless engineers, then this is even scarier.
Pride Goeth before a #FAIL
What us nore intereting is that they must - MUST (surely) - have seen this result in testing before launch, so it is interesting to speculate why the launched regardless - after all the evental sticking plaster (that would work too...) was hardly rocket science or costly, and yet the impact of such an error is surely huge compared to whatever benefits were gained by launching at the time
How to win friends and influence people the Apple Way
The attempt to recover essentialy by blaming the users for the way they held it, or for whining, or for being hundred pound saltbags was an..."interesting" strategy. It plays well to the fanbois, but outside of that sanctum less well methinks.
Thats 3 strikes in rapid succession - what does this say about what is going on within Apple, one wonders?
Anyway, policy in Broadstuff Towers is to be a laggardly Early Adopter - always wait 6 months while The Market (aka the suckers who buy early) irons out the bugs (and beside, the price usually drops too).
Wisdom of Crowds? Statistics? Naah, get an Octopus
The poor form of "Wisdom of Crowds" Prediction markets and Performace Statistics
We have been reflecting on the poor performance of "Wisdom of Crowds" prediction markets and on historical Statistics to predict future occurrences, as shown in the chart above (see the original article here)
News reached Broadstuff Towers yesterday that a new, and better, prediction method has been found - an octopus:
The creature, known as Paul, has correctly chosen all of his German homeland's results so far. This time hie is predicting Spain vs Holland
With food in both boxes to attract Paul, it is then a matter of waiting until he opens one of them to determine his predicted winner. The eight-legged mystic has a perfect record at this tournament - and is said to have had an 80% success rate during Euro 2008.
Here he is on YouTube
I recall a test done many years ago - the Monkey Market Fund - where stocks were picked based on where monkeys were looking, and it outperformed the stock market average. Maybe ancient soothsayers had it right after all - who needs algorithms when you have entrails.
This being South Africa's World Cup, I am surprised that there have been no stories of the local sangomas divining the Footballl results.....
Update - And, of course, Spain won...........
We have been reflecting on the poor performance of "Wisdom of Crowds" prediction markets and on historical Statistics to predict future occurrences, as shown in the chart above (see the original article here)
News reached Broadstuff Towers yesterday that a new, and better, prediction method has been found - an octopus:
The creature, known as Paul, has correctly chosen all of his German homeland's results so far. This time hie is predicting Spain vs Holland
With food in both boxes to attract Paul, it is then a matter of waiting until he opens one of them to determine his predicted winner. The eight-legged mystic has a perfect record at this tournament - and is said to have had an 80% success rate during Euro 2008.
Here he is on YouTube
I recall a test done many years ago - the Monkey Market Fund - where stocks were picked based on where monkeys were looking, and it outperformed the stock market average. Maybe ancient soothsayers had it right after all - who needs algorithms when you have entrails.
This being South Africa's World Cup, I am surprised that there have been no stories of the local sangomas divining the Footballl results.....
Update - And, of course, Spain won...........
Pew study finds social media fanbois like social media a lot
Pew study of social media users' views on social media (full report here):
....a significant majority of technology experts and stakeholders participating in the fourth Future of the Internet survey say it improves social relations and will continue to do so through 2020.
Some 85% agreed with the statement:
"In 2020, when I look at the big picture and consider my personal friendships, marriage and other relationships, I see that the internet has mostly been a positive force on my social world. And this will only grow more true in the future."
Some 14% agreed with the opposite statement, which posited:
"In 2020, when I look at the big picture and consider my personal friendships, marriage and other relationships, I see that the internet has mostly been a negative force on my social world. And this will only grow more true in the future."
Most of people who participated in the survey were effusive in their praise of the social connectivity already being leveraged globally online. They said humans' use of the internet's capabilities for communication -- for creating, cultivating, and continuing social relationships -- is undeniable. Many enthusiastically cited their personal experiences as examples, and several noted that they had met their spouse through internet-born interaction.
The underlying drivers are seen to be the lowering of the "friction" of communicating - cost, geographical barriers and time required to keep in contact with people.
The drawbacks perceived were....
Among the negatives noted by both groups of respondents: time spent online robs time from important face-to-face relationships; the internet fosters mostly shallow relationships; the act of leveraging the internet to engage in social connection exposes private information; the internet allows people to silo themselves, limiting their exposure to new ideas; and the internet is being used to engender intolerance.
So what's not to like?
One of the issues with all this is that the survey was done of "experts" and "stakeholders". Pew says that:
The surveys are conducted through online questionnaires to which a selected group of experts and the highly engaged Internet public have been invited to respond. The surveys present potential-future scenarios to which respondents react with their expectations based on current knowledge and attitudes
And if you read that detailed survey methodology (I do this sort of stuff for a living, these things interest me) and the list of famous Soc Med fans questioned, the worry is that the recipients are not neutrals. "By design, this survey was an “opt in,” self-selecting effort. That process does not yield a random, representative sample" says Pew. I'll say - read the respondents opinions over here.
Which begs the question of the whole point - never mind the veracity of - the study. It is clearly not useful as research, so what is the aim here? I have no objections to a "Delphi" technique (questioning experts to get their views), but ths isn't one, as the questions are pre-structured to derive a result, and the approach is not made very clear in the press release.
The worry I have with this sort of "research" is that tech journalists and bloggers will pick up on the press release without looking at how it was done, and if enough of them do that you get a distorted view of the market. Perish the thought that this may, in fact, be the aim (I see that GigaOm wasn't taken in....)
....a significant majority of technology experts and stakeholders participating in the fourth Future of the Internet survey say it improves social relations and will continue to do so through 2020.
Some 85% agreed with the statement:
"In 2020, when I look at the big picture and consider my personal friendships, marriage and other relationships, I see that the internet has mostly been a positive force on my social world. And this will only grow more true in the future."
Some 14% agreed with the opposite statement, which posited:
"In 2020, when I look at the big picture and consider my personal friendships, marriage and other relationships, I see that the internet has mostly been a negative force on my social world. And this will only grow more true in the future."
Most of people who participated in the survey were effusive in their praise of the social connectivity already being leveraged globally online. They said humans' use of the internet's capabilities for communication -- for creating, cultivating, and continuing social relationships -- is undeniable. Many enthusiastically cited their personal experiences as examples, and several noted that they had met their spouse through internet-born interaction.
The underlying drivers are seen to be the lowering of the "friction" of communicating - cost, geographical barriers and time required to keep in contact with people.
The drawbacks perceived were....
Among the negatives noted by both groups of respondents: time spent online robs time from important face-to-face relationships; the internet fosters mostly shallow relationships; the act of leveraging the internet to engage in social connection exposes private information; the internet allows people to silo themselves, limiting their exposure to new ideas; and the internet is being used to engender intolerance.
So what's not to like?
One of the issues with all this is that the survey was done of "experts" and "stakeholders". Pew says that:
The surveys are conducted through online questionnaires to which a selected group of experts and the highly engaged Internet public have been invited to respond. The surveys present potential-future scenarios to which respondents react with their expectations based on current knowledge and attitudes
And if you read that detailed survey methodology (I do this sort of stuff for a living, these things interest me) and the list of famous Soc Med fans questioned, the worry is that the recipients are not neutrals. "By design, this survey was an “opt in,” self-selecting effort. That process does not yield a random, representative sample" says Pew. I'll say - read the respondents opinions over here.
Which begs the question of the whole point - never mind the veracity of - the study. It is clearly not useful as research, so what is the aim here? I have no objections to a "Delphi" technique (questioning experts to get their views), but ths isn't one, as the questions are pre-structured to derive a result, and the approach is not made very clear in the press release.
The worry I have with this sort of "research" is that tech journalists and bloggers will pick up on the press release without looking at how it was done, and if enough of them do that you get a distorted view of the market. Perish the thought that this may, in fact, be the aim (I see that GigaOm wasn't taken in....)
#Activate 2010 - a load of Schmidt?
Been catching up this afternoon with what Eric Schmidt said at Actvate 2010 yesterday, its been reported in the Torygraph, Grauniad and El Reg (I am ignoring the twitterstream from now on - here's why). If you are interested in what will happen in the next 2 - 3 years then its worth catching up n as there are Googlefingers in so many pies, and the guy is no fool - maybe Evil, but no fool.
Schmidt said there were 3 big trends - the growth of mobile internet connectivity, the growth of cloud computing, and networking. To me those are two big trends - mobile and cloud - the other is an underlying architecture. I also think he is trying a 3 pot shuffle - to me, the three things that look like the 3 Big Trends in the Googleverse are Mobile, Cloud - and slipping past the Privacy/Trust issue in datamining. So, in reverse order:
Trusssst in Meeee
(From the Torygraph)
Schmidt says this enables them to deliver better-targeted ads - more lucrative for Google, more relevant and less annoying for you. However, it raises privacy issues, something for which Google has been criticised.
"I think the criticism is fine. I think criticism informs us, it makes us better. It doesn't bother me at all,” Schmidt says. However, he acknowledges the problem but says it’s a broader issue. "Those concerns are real - I'm not trying to move away from them. The fact of the matter is that if you're online all the time, computers are generating a lot of information about you. This is not a Google decision, this is a societal decision. In Britain, you all allow yourselves to be photographed on every street corner. Where are the riots?”
Google, Schmidt says, is kept in check by its customers and by the competition: “All of our testing indicates that the vast majority of people are perfectly happy with our policy. And this message is the message that nobody wants to hear so let me say it again: the reality is we make decisions based on what the average user tells us and we do check. And the reason that you should trust us is that if we were to violate that trust people would move immediately to someone else. We're very non-sticky so we have a very high interest in maintaining the trust of those users."
In other words trust the Wisdom Of The Crowds to know what is good for them. In that way you can fool most of the dumb b*star....er, People most of the time...... Sadly for Google, that does not apear to be the ay it is working - too many people who can't be fooled are taking too close an interest.
Mobile Internet
(From the Grauniad)
"Mobile is the hottest area of computer technology," Schmidt said. "The smartest developers now are writing apps for mobile before they write for Windows or Apple Mac desktop operating systems. Part of that is because these devices are hugely personal to us when we use them."
Asked what he thought of the future of newspapers, Schmidt said: "What does the newsreading experience look like many years from now? I think it's delivered to a digital device, which has text, obviously, but also colour, and video, and the ability to dig very deeply into what you are supplied with. At the moment we have readers, but it's not intelligent enough; newspapers often tell me what I already know. We'll have advertising products that are much more media-centric. The most important thing is that it will be more personalised."
They will beat Apple by suing the Microsoft Gambit
"We don't have a plan to beat Apple, that's not how we operate," Schmidt says. "We're trying to do something different than Apple and the good news is that Apple is making that very easy."
"The difference between the Apple model and the Google model is easy to understand - they're completely different. The Google model is completely open. You can basically take the software - it's free - you can modify whatever you want, you can add any kind of app, you can build any kind of business model on top of it and you can add any kind of hardware. The Apple model is the inverse."
Except that when Microsoft played Apple they had all the App developers, and a good hardware distribution network - two things Google/Android is struggling with - as El Reg notes:
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has convinced himself that the company killed its sold-direct-to-netizen Nexus One phone after less than six months because it was "so successful."
"The idea a year and a half ago was to do the Nexus One to try to move the phone platform hardware business forward. It clearly did," Schmidt told The Telegraph, demonstrating just how far removed from reality his mind has become.
Microsoft never did direct sales. A lesson for Google there methinks. It is possible for them to win the "Microsoft" position in the mobile smart device market, but to do so - if Microsoft's lesson is anything to go buy - you have to have a large scale 3rd party distribution system (IBM, anyone?) and the lions share of the developers on your platform.
The Cloud
(From the ToryGraph)
This is about more than just selling people a new product, it’s about shaping a social change. Within three-to-five years, Schmidt says, we’ll be consuming almost all of our information online. We’ll do it, he adds, “on devices that are live not static. The characteristics of these devices are that they know who you are, they know where you are, they can play video and they carry memory."
To get a sense of the likely rate of change of the next three-to-five years, think back over the same period. Google has bought YouTube, launched Google Docs, taken leaps forward in mapping and expanded into mobile operating systems with Android and desktop operating systems with Chrome OS.
The Cloud is upon us! And yet, and yet...... every 10 years or so some company pops up with the (rather self serving) nostrum that The Cloud will rule. And all the Kings horses and all the Kings men spend PR money like water, but it dies down again as reality intrudes. Mr Schmidts says that:
"The internet is the most disruptive technology in history, even more than something like electricity, because it replaces scarcity with abundance, so that any business built on scarcity is completely upturned as it arrives there," Schmidt said. "You have to plan your corporate strategy around what the internet does."
Leaving aside whether or not the Internet is " the most disruptive technology in history", a lot of people think IP will be like electricity and other commodities, but consider the differences:
- There are no similar "economies of scale" for production infrastructure to justify massive centralised plants vs local production. This is seen in the (reluctant) admission by Cloudists that its benefit is not cost saving.
- The variabiity required in the end product is far higher (for now anyway), so the benefits of end product commoditisation are not as high and the complexity costs of its mass delivery are worse.
- Those who win from mass centralisation (Cloucd Co's) are not those who own the Transport infrastructure - objectives are not aligned. Witness the 'Net Neutrality bunfight.
- "There is no Plan B" if a Cloud based infrastructure goes down, at least in the forseeable future. Nobody with any form of risk will thus put all their eggs in its basket.
- There is not as much fungibility in the supply chain. Apple locks you in one way, Facebook another, etc etc. Imagine if your dishwasher would only work off one companies' electricity and your TV off anothers.
In other words, The Cloud ain't going to take over anytime soon. But then, Google knows that, which is why its not putting a lot of its resources into it - the main Googlegame is to try and wreck Microsoft's economics by giving it away for free. Which is, of course, why Microsoft has gone into Search with Bing.....
Schmidt said there were 3 big trends - the growth of mobile internet connectivity, the growth of cloud computing, and networking. To me those are two big trends - mobile and cloud - the other is an underlying architecture. I also think he is trying a 3 pot shuffle - to me, the three things that look like the 3 Big Trends in the Googleverse are Mobile, Cloud - and slipping past the Privacy/Trust issue in datamining. So, in reverse order:
Trusssst in Meeee
(From the Torygraph)
Schmidt says this enables them to deliver better-targeted ads - more lucrative for Google, more relevant and less annoying for you. However, it raises privacy issues, something for which Google has been criticised.
"I think the criticism is fine. I think criticism informs us, it makes us better. It doesn't bother me at all,” Schmidt says. However, he acknowledges the problem but says it’s a broader issue. "Those concerns are real - I'm not trying to move away from them. The fact of the matter is that if you're online all the time, computers are generating a lot of information about you. This is not a Google decision, this is a societal decision. In Britain, you all allow yourselves to be photographed on every street corner. Where are the riots?”
Google, Schmidt says, is kept in check by its customers and by the competition: “All of our testing indicates that the vast majority of people are perfectly happy with our policy. And this message is the message that nobody wants to hear so let me say it again: the reality is we make decisions based on what the average user tells us and we do check. And the reason that you should trust us is that if we were to violate that trust people would move immediately to someone else. We're very non-sticky so we have a very high interest in maintaining the trust of those users."
In other words trust the Wisdom Of The Crowds to know what is good for them. In that way you can fool most of the dumb b*star....er, People most of the time...... Sadly for Google, that does not apear to be the ay it is working - too many people who can't be fooled are taking too close an interest.
Mobile Internet
(From the Grauniad)
"Mobile is the hottest area of computer technology," Schmidt said. "The smartest developers now are writing apps for mobile before they write for Windows or Apple Mac desktop operating systems. Part of that is because these devices are hugely personal to us when we use them."
Asked what he thought of the future of newspapers, Schmidt said: "What does the newsreading experience look like many years from now? I think it's delivered to a digital device, which has text, obviously, but also colour, and video, and the ability to dig very deeply into what you are supplied with. At the moment we have readers, but it's not intelligent enough; newspapers often tell me what I already know. We'll have advertising products that are much more media-centric. The most important thing is that it will be more personalised."
They will beat Apple by suing the Microsoft Gambit
"We don't have a plan to beat Apple, that's not how we operate," Schmidt says. "We're trying to do something different than Apple and the good news is that Apple is making that very easy."
"The difference between the Apple model and the Google model is easy to understand - they're completely different. The Google model is completely open. You can basically take the software - it's free - you can modify whatever you want, you can add any kind of app, you can build any kind of business model on top of it and you can add any kind of hardware. The Apple model is the inverse."
Except that when Microsoft played Apple they had all the App developers, and a good hardware distribution network - two things Google/Android is struggling with - as El Reg notes:
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has convinced himself that the company killed its sold-direct-to-netizen Nexus One phone after less than six months because it was "so successful."
"The idea a year and a half ago was to do the Nexus One to try to move the phone platform hardware business forward. It clearly did," Schmidt told The Telegraph, demonstrating just how far removed from reality his mind has become.
Microsoft never did direct sales. A lesson for Google there methinks. It is possible for them to win the "Microsoft" position in the mobile smart device market, but to do so - if Microsoft's lesson is anything to go buy - you have to have a large scale 3rd party distribution system (IBM, anyone?) and the lions share of the developers on your platform.
The Cloud
(From the ToryGraph)
This is about more than just selling people a new product, it’s about shaping a social change. Within three-to-five years, Schmidt says, we’ll be consuming almost all of our information online. We’ll do it, he adds, “on devices that are live not static. The characteristics of these devices are that they know who you are, they know where you are, they can play video and they carry memory."
To get a sense of the likely rate of change of the next three-to-five years, think back over the same period. Google has bought YouTube, launched Google Docs, taken leaps forward in mapping and expanded into mobile operating systems with Android and desktop operating systems with Chrome OS.
The Cloud is upon us! And yet, and yet...... every 10 years or so some company pops up with the (rather self serving) nostrum that The Cloud will rule. And all the Kings horses and all the Kings men spend PR money like water, but it dies down again as reality intrudes. Mr Schmidts says that:
"The internet is the most disruptive technology in history, even more than something like electricity, because it replaces scarcity with abundance, so that any business built on scarcity is completely upturned as it arrives there," Schmidt said. "You have to plan your corporate strategy around what the internet does."
Leaving aside whether or not the Internet is " the most disruptive technology in history", a lot of people think IP will be like electricity and other commodities, but consider the differences:
- There are no similar "economies of scale" for production infrastructure to justify massive centralised plants vs local production. This is seen in the (reluctant) admission by Cloudists that its benefit is not cost saving.
- The variabiity required in the end product is far higher (for now anyway), so the benefits of end product commoditisation are not as high and the complexity costs of its mass delivery are worse.
- Those who win from mass centralisation (Cloucd Co's) are not those who own the Transport infrastructure - objectives are not aligned. Witness the 'Net Neutrality bunfight.
- "There is no Plan B" if a Cloud based infrastructure goes down, at least in the forseeable future. Nobody with any form of risk will thus put all their eggs in its basket.
- There is not as much fungibility in the supply chain. Apple locks you in one way, Facebook another, etc etc. Imagine if your dishwasher would only work off one companies' electricity and your TV off anothers.
In other words, The Cloud ain't going to take over anytime soon. But then, Google knows that, which is why its not putting a lot of its resources into it - the main Googlegame is to try and wreck Microsoft's economics by giving it away for free. Which is, of course, why Microsoft has gone into Search with Bing.....
#Activate2010 - Filtering the Twitterstream
Rather interesting observation yesterday - I was busy with client work so couldn't attend the Grauniad Activate 2010 conference, so I dipped in (as is my wont) to the User Generated Twitterstream (#activate2010). At the same time there was a Guardian liveblog and a moderated Twitterstream from its Journalists was going on.
What was interesting to me was the massive degradation in the User Generated Twitterstream. Last year, and early this year, you could tune in to such Twitterstreams and get a fairly decent "user generated media" view of what was going on. The "User Generated" Activate Twitterstream yesterday was....well, "unhelpful" would put it mildly.
Key issues I spotted were that retweeting of content was far more focussed than before, but not in a good way - the main focus was on:
(i) Uncritical mass retweeting of "soundbite sayings" - "Kool aid" homilies etc
(ii) Similar mass retweeting of very dubious statistics, again totally uncritically.
(iii) In fact my impression overall is that the Twitterstream was becoming an "empty vessels making the most noise" mode of communication. The Retweeting seemed more about marking cyberterritory by pissing on the digital lamp-posts than actually communicating anything.
The disparity between the Twitterstream and the Grauniad "Journalist Generated" Liveblog and Twitterstream became more and more marked as the day wore on, leading me to ormulate two hypotheses for "User Generated Media" going forward:
(i) The "Citizen Reporter" on the twitterstream, who was a pretty reliable eyewitness 2007-9. is increasingly being drowned out by flacks, fanbois and noisy numpties. "Proper" mainstream media journalism again is becoming a far more trusted source. The age of "You Media" is over.
(ii) I eventually stopped watching the Twitterstream, setting up a temporary stream from a group of people whose views I trust that were there. In other words, the Twitter Signal to Noise ratio is gettng to the point where filtering the folksonomy by trusted source will be essential.
The obvious lesson for presenters from yesterday is that using mental bubblegum soundbites that send the twitternumpties into RT frenzy is a far more effective way of getting your message across than any reasoned argument. That was ever thus, true - but the only danger with this, I would argue from my reasoning above, is that over time it degrades to lowest common denominators sans moderation - a tragedy of the commoners, as it were. It will work like online advertising - you do it to get to the most influential people, but they are the first to avoid it - so you wind up banging your gong to the digital peasantry.
And on the way, the countless retweeting empty vessels toll the death bell for Citizen Journalism on Social Media platforms.
No what surprises me a lot about this post is that I wrote it! I'm no friend of the MSM, and a fan of the whole "2.0" thingy in general, but what this showed me is that, left to its own unfiltered devices, "User Generated" content is a lot like a the h3nry Sewer of Life - what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. And like that sewer, if what is being put in is a lot of crap.....
As an aside, it may also mean that the Good Stuff in future will be found behind Times style paywalls and what you get for free is increasingly Ad-peddled and raddled sh*t (as the Economist implies today - but the article is, newly, behind a paywall.....).
What was interesting to me was the massive degradation in the User Generated Twitterstream. Last year, and early this year, you could tune in to such Twitterstreams and get a fairly decent "user generated media" view of what was going on. The "User Generated" Activate Twitterstream yesterday was....well, "unhelpful" would put it mildly.
Key issues I spotted were that retweeting of content was far more focussed than before, but not in a good way - the main focus was on:
(i) Uncritical mass retweeting of "soundbite sayings" - "Kool aid" homilies etc
(ii) Similar mass retweeting of very dubious statistics, again totally uncritically.
(iii) In fact my impression overall is that the Twitterstream was becoming an "empty vessels making the most noise" mode of communication. The Retweeting seemed more about marking cyberterritory by pissing on the digital lamp-posts than actually communicating anything.
The disparity between the Twitterstream and the Grauniad "Journalist Generated" Liveblog and Twitterstream became more and more marked as the day wore on, leading me to ormulate two hypotheses for "User Generated Media" going forward:
(i) The "Citizen Reporter" on the twitterstream, who was a pretty reliable eyewitness 2007-9. is increasingly being drowned out by flacks, fanbois and noisy numpties. "Proper" mainstream media journalism again is becoming a far more trusted source. The age of "You Media" is over.
(ii) I eventually stopped watching the Twitterstream, setting up a temporary stream from a group of people whose views I trust that were there. In other words, the Twitter Signal to Noise ratio is gettng to the point where filtering the folksonomy by trusted source will be essential.
The obvious lesson for presenters from yesterday is that using mental bubblegum soundbites that send the twitternumpties into RT frenzy is a far more effective way of getting your message across than any reasoned argument. That was ever thus, true - but the only danger with this, I would argue from my reasoning above, is that over time it degrades to lowest common denominators sans moderation - a tragedy of the commoners, as it were. It will work like online advertising - you do it to get to the most influential people, but they are the first to avoid it - so you wind up banging your gong to the digital peasantry.
And on the way, the countless retweeting empty vessels toll the death bell for Citizen Journalism on Social Media platforms.
No what surprises me a lot about this post is that I wrote it! I'm no friend of the MSM, and a fan of the whole "2.0" thingy in general, but what this showed me is that, left to its own unfiltered devices, "User Generated" content is a lot like a the h3nry Sewer of Life - what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. And like that sewer, if what is being put in is a lot of crap.....
As an aside, it may also mean that the Good Stuff in future will be found behind Times style paywalls and what you get for free is increasingly Ad-peddled and raddled sh*t (as the Economist implies today - but the article is, newly, behind a paywall.....).
Lies, Damn Lies and World Cup Statistics
Prediction market Inkling's view on world Cup predictions
All the angst about England going out in the last 16 of the World Cup has me befuddled, as its exactly what was predicted statistically by its rankings over the last 18 months (Germany has been Top 4 on average, England nudging Top 8 ). Its the same old litany of English football - the British media overhypes the team above what the odds say is plausible, then there is the predictable and inevitable disappointment, the ritual sacrifice of the Manager, the FA Inquest, the Reports, the Burying Under The Carpet, the New Favourite Manager appointed to the hysterical plaudits of the Football press, and the same sad cycle again 2 years later.
(You may be able to lie with statistics, but its a lot easier without them ;-0 )
Anyway, it may be interesting to see what the Prediction Markets are saying about the Last 8. I looked at the Inklings market, mainly because its data is publically visible unlike Yahoo's much heralded Predictor (Note to Yahoo - putting stuff people pay for behind a wall is sensible, but free stuff????)
As you can see in the diagram above, the prediction market is fairly clear about Brazil's probability of winning, and about Spain's. The probabilities for Argentina v Germany and Uruguay v Ghana are far closer. Incidentally, FIFA results largely agree except they place Germany (6th ranked) above Argentina (7th ranked), and Spain (2nd ranked) way above them).
(erratum - I have Spain beating Argentina (FIFA prediction) whereas the Prediction Market has it the other way)
So, thats the prediction market view as of close of play today.....lets see how it turns out.
Update 1 - Holland beats Brazil, totally against the predictions
Update 2 - Uruguay beat Ghana in a very close game by a cynical handball stopping a certain goal. In Rugby that would be a penalty try, game to Ghana. Football is not a "sport", and its laws are an ass.
Update 3 - Germany hammers Argentina 4-0 against prediction
Update 4 - Spain narrowly beat Paraguay 1-0
All the angst about England going out in the last 16 of the World Cup has me befuddled, as its exactly what was predicted statistically by its rankings over the last 18 months (Germany has been Top 4 on average, England nudging Top 8 ). Its the same old litany of English football - the British media overhypes the team above what the odds say is plausible, then there is the predictable and inevitable disappointment, the ritual sacrifice of the Manager, the FA Inquest, the Reports, the Burying Under The Carpet, the New Favourite Manager appointed to the hysterical plaudits of the Football press, and the same sad cycle again 2 years later.
(You may be able to lie with statistics, but its a lot easier without them ;-0 )
Anyway, it may be interesting to see what the Prediction Markets are saying about the Last 8. I looked at the Inklings market, mainly because its data is publically visible unlike Yahoo's much heralded Predictor (Note to Yahoo - putting stuff people pay for behind a wall is sensible, but free stuff????)
As you can see in the diagram above, the prediction market is fairly clear about Brazil's probability of winning, and about Spain's. The probabilities for Argentina v Germany and Uruguay v Ghana are far closer. Incidentally, FIFA results largely agree except they place Germany (6th ranked) above Argentina (7th ranked), and Spain (2nd ranked) way above them).
(erratum - I have Spain beating Argentina (FIFA prediction) whereas the Prediction Market has it the other way)
So, thats the prediction market view as of close of play today.....lets see how it turns out.
Update 1 - Holland beats Brazil, totally against the predictions
Update 2 - Uruguay beat Ghana in a very close game by a cynical handball stopping a certain goal. In Rugby that would be a penalty try, game to Ghana. Football is not a "sport", and its laws are an ass.
Update 3 - Germany hammers Argentina 4-0 against prediction
Update 4 - Spain narrowly beat Paraguay 1-0
Online Porn to stop Flashing
I had to write the article for the headline alone, but its true:
The founder of Digital Playground, one of the porn heavyweights in the U.S., told ConceivablyTech that it will abandon Flash as soon as the desktop browsers fully support HTML 5. We also learned that 3D is just not there yet and that online movie streaming is unlikely to replace Blu-ray discs anytime soon.
The reason is that HTML 5 is making it redundant:
We have HTML 5, which is generally praised as the next major evolutionary step for HTML that automatically questions the future of Flash. Conceivably, Flash could co-exist next to HTML 5, but if we look at the possibilities that are provided by HTML 5, it is entirely possible that Flash will be obsolete in the not distant future.
And thus the Adult industry, a tech kingmaker in the past, is looking at the next thing - the iPhone! No flash on the iPhone + lots of iPhone usetrs + a wa of making money from content = HTML 5.
That will probably be the evolving story of all online video media going forward, at least until there is another way of making money from it.
The founder of Digital Playground, one of the porn heavyweights in the U.S., told ConceivablyTech that it will abandon Flash as soon as the desktop browsers fully support HTML 5. We also learned that 3D is just not there yet and that online movie streaming is unlikely to replace Blu-ray discs anytime soon.
The reason is that HTML 5 is making it redundant:
We have HTML 5, which is generally praised as the next major evolutionary step for HTML that automatically questions the future of Flash. Conceivably, Flash could co-exist next to HTML 5, but if we look at the possibilities that are provided by HTML 5, it is entirely possible that Flash will be obsolete in the not distant future.
And thus the Adult industry, a tech kingmaker in the past, is looking at the next thing - the iPhone! No flash on the iPhone + lots of iPhone usetrs + a wa of making money from content = HTML 5.
That will probably be the evolving story of all online video media going forward, at least until there is another way of making money from it.
McKinsey on Social Media
I was quite intrigued by this piece from the McKinsey Quarterly, as two people whose views I respect were quite negative about it. In essence the piece argues that two insights are key about Social Media. The first is (I abridge):
The power of importance
An effective way for a brand to be useful in the context of social networks is to make people who originate a word-of-mouth conversation seem important within their own social environment. Recognition by peers is a powerful motivator, and brands that allow users to gain it deliver real perceived value. When users publicize that recognition, it translates into word of mouth. Companies can confer this kind of importance—for example, by issuing achievement “badges” that users can post to their Facebook profiles or by deploying leader boards or achievement scores of all types. As Web sites evolve to become increasingly dynamic experiences that let people interact in real time, the value to core users of being recognized for their prominence in a community will only increase.
and the second....
The allure of virtual items
It’s our strong intuition that virtual items play an important role in facilitating virtual word of mouth. This belief, at its core, is based on observing user behavior. While the notion of virtual goods—nonphysical objects used in online communities and games—still puzzles many executives, it’s quite apparent that consumers love them. People acquire or compete for virtual items obsessively on Foursquare, Zynga, and many other sites. It is estimated that virtual goods have become a very real $5 billion industry worldwide.
So why do consumers pay real money for online objects that don’t actually exist? Their motives reinforce our notion that users seek online importance: they purchase virtual goods primarily for self-expression (such as virtual houses or virtual gifts) and for recognition (such as virtual badges for becoming, say, the “mayor” of a bar on Foursquare). These behaviors are too widespread and intense to be fads, and marketers need to recognize them as meaningful. Brands should actively experiment with ways to use virtual goods as catalysts of word-of-mouth media.
And a final thought:
One final recommendation: no gimmicks. Forget dancing monkeys, artificial contests, or stupid tricks; they add no value and waste people’s time. A commitment to being useful in social-media activities means a commitment to creating only high-quality interactions.
So, now having read it, my thoughts are that:
(i) For anybody who is familiar with the Social Media story over the last few years these are hardly "insights" - it is pretty basic stuff, but then the intended audience of this article is mainly large corporate types (the majority of the readers of said Journal) to whom this is all new, rather than the early adopters. It's aim - and thus language - is to speak of Social Media in the lingua franca of Large Corporations (the piece's author works for a large media company now - 'nuff said. ....). The TLA's and Re-Engineering Methodologies are sure to follow now
(ii) To give the author some credit, much of the Early Adopter thinking is about the technical "how" (or even wow!, gee whiz!, etc) rather than the economic "why" or the executive's "what". For all that these are not new insights, they are definitely ones that are Following The Money - ie these are major areas that are directly translateable into the business plans that mainstream adoption requires. In that, it does make a refreshing change from the financial otherworldliness of some early day Social Media evangelists
(iii) To an extent this is "The Death of Social Media" as Adriana Lukas puts it - ie it is the end of it as an early adopter experimentation era, a transition from the romance of infinite possibilities to the pragmatism of (very) finite probabilities, the shift from small, sexy startups to large, boring conglomerates, a shift from huge promises to cheese paring profits (and Google too is having another go, by the way.) and very likley its absorption into the Standard Business Processes. (The real end is when the SAP module comes out....)
The risk is that in the corporate rush to Colonise, Taylorize and Strip Mine the Social Media Golden Goose, said Goose is strangled by the corporate's red tape decks - as the author notes:
Word-of-mouth marketing through social networks could emerge as an important tool in the marketer’s arsenal. That will depend on whether marketers can tame the fundamentally unpredictable and serendipitous nature of word of mouth without losing what makes it so valuable in the first place—its authenticity.
Ah yes....authenticity. Been a bit of a problem so far, that. Still, if one can fool enough of the punters for enough of the time.....
What would I do differently if I were the McKinsey Quarterly?. I would probably reach out to a host of other alumni who are also working in this area to get a richer, more nuanced view.
Like me for example
The power of importance
An effective way for a brand to be useful in the context of social networks is to make people who originate a word-of-mouth conversation seem important within their own social environment. Recognition by peers is a powerful motivator, and brands that allow users to gain it deliver real perceived value. When users publicize that recognition, it translates into word of mouth. Companies can confer this kind of importance—for example, by issuing achievement “badges” that users can post to their Facebook profiles or by deploying leader boards or achievement scores of all types. As Web sites evolve to become increasingly dynamic experiences that let people interact in real time, the value to core users of being recognized for their prominence in a community will only increase.
and the second....
The allure of virtual items
It’s our strong intuition that virtual items play an important role in facilitating virtual word of mouth. This belief, at its core, is based on observing user behavior. While the notion of virtual goods—nonphysical objects used in online communities and games—still puzzles many executives, it’s quite apparent that consumers love them. People acquire or compete for virtual items obsessively on Foursquare, Zynga, and many other sites. It is estimated that virtual goods have become a very real $5 billion industry worldwide.
So why do consumers pay real money for online objects that don’t actually exist? Their motives reinforce our notion that users seek online importance: they purchase virtual goods primarily for self-expression (such as virtual houses or virtual gifts) and for recognition (such as virtual badges for becoming, say, the “mayor” of a bar on Foursquare). These behaviors are too widespread and intense to be fads, and marketers need to recognize them as meaningful. Brands should actively experiment with ways to use virtual goods as catalysts of word-of-mouth media.
And a final thought:
One final recommendation: no gimmicks. Forget dancing monkeys, artificial contests, or stupid tricks; they add no value and waste people’s time. A commitment to being useful in social-media activities means a commitment to creating only high-quality interactions.
So, now having read it, my thoughts are that:
(i) For anybody who is familiar with the Social Media story over the last few years these are hardly "insights" - it is pretty basic stuff, but then the intended audience of this article is mainly large corporate types (the majority of the readers of said Journal) to whom this is all new, rather than the early adopters. It's aim - and thus language - is to speak of Social Media in the lingua franca of Large Corporations (the piece's author works for a large media company now - 'nuff said. ....). The TLA's and Re-Engineering Methodologies are sure to follow now
(ii) To give the author some credit, much of the Early Adopter thinking is about the technical "how" (or even wow!, gee whiz!, etc) rather than the economic "why" or the executive's "what". For all that these are not new insights, they are definitely ones that are Following The Money - ie these are major areas that are directly translateable into the business plans that mainstream adoption requires. In that, it does make a refreshing change from the financial otherworldliness of some early day Social Media evangelists
(iii) To an extent this is "The Death of Social Media" as Adriana Lukas puts it - ie it is the end of it as an early adopter experimentation era, a transition from the romance of infinite possibilities to the pragmatism of (very) finite probabilities, the shift from small, sexy startups to large, boring conglomerates, a shift from huge promises to cheese paring profits (and Google too is having another go, by the way.) and very likley its absorption into the Standard Business Processes. (The real end is when the SAP module comes out....)
The risk is that in the corporate rush to Colonise, Taylorize and Strip Mine the Social Media Golden Goose, said Goose is strangled by the corporate's red tape decks - as the author notes:
Word-of-mouth marketing through social networks could emerge as an important tool in the marketer’s arsenal. That will depend on whether marketers can tame the fundamentally unpredictable and serendipitous nature of word of mouth without losing what makes it so valuable in the first place—its authenticity.
Ah yes....authenticity. Been a bit of a problem so far, that. Still, if one can fool enough of the punters for enough of the time.....
What would I do differently if I were the McKinsey Quarterly?. I would probably reach out to a host of other alumni who are also working in this area to get a richer, more nuanced view.
Like me for example
Facebook Privacy Algorithm Update
Facebook Privacy Algorithm Updated
News reaches us today that Facebook has reacted to the global worres about privacy abuse by hiring a Beltway Lobbyist - Washington Post:
Facebook said Thursday that it is expanding its global policy team and poached from the White House, hiring as its new vice president of global public policy, Marne Levine, chief of staff of the National Economic Council.
In her new role for the Silicon Valley social networking Goliath, Levine will oversee the company’s interaction with governments and non-governmental organizations around the globe as the company reaches 500 million users worldwide, Facebook said in an announcement Thursday.
She will be based in Washington, just as the firm builds its local policy and lobbying team to address growing interest by lawmakers and regulators on how the social networking giant is dealing with issues such as copyright, security of children online, and privacy.
Levine will also help the firm build its policy teams in Asia, the Americas and Europe, the company said.
If you can't beat 'em, buy a Lobbyist (or, if you pefer this homily; when the going gets tough, the tough get lobbying). We have thus updated our Facebook Privacy Algorithm to take this new step into account (see above).
The serious (as opposed to satirical) point is that Facebook has gone from groovy startup to large lobbying corporate in remarkably short time, driven in the main by the increasing conflict between their commercial model which demands exposing ever more private user data, and the growing concerns of privacy activists, legislators and - increasingly - citizens.
This follows fast on the heels on the publication of a Facebook Fanbook (every large US privacy invading company has one....)
News reaches us today that Facebook has reacted to the global worres about privacy abuse by hiring a Beltway Lobbyist - Washington Post:
Facebook said Thursday that it is expanding its global policy team and poached from the White House, hiring as its new vice president of global public policy, Marne Levine, chief of staff of the National Economic Council.
In her new role for the Silicon Valley social networking Goliath, Levine will oversee the company’s interaction with governments and non-governmental organizations around the globe as the company reaches 500 million users worldwide, Facebook said in an announcement Thursday.
She will be based in Washington, just as the firm builds its local policy and lobbying team to address growing interest by lawmakers and regulators on how the social networking giant is dealing with issues such as copyright, security of children online, and privacy.
Levine will also help the firm build its policy teams in Asia, the Americas and Europe, the company said.
If you can't beat 'em, buy a Lobbyist (or, if you pefer this homily; when the going gets tough, the tough get lobbying). We have thus updated our Facebook Privacy Algorithm to take this new step into account (see above).
The serious (as opposed to satirical) point is that Facebook has gone from groovy startup to large lobbying corporate in remarkably short time, driven in the main by the increasing conflict between their commercial model which demands exposing ever more private user data, and the growing concerns of privacy activists, legislators and - increasingly - citizens.
This follows fast on the heels on the publication of a Facebook Fanbook (every large US privacy invading company has one....)
What turns an Apple fanboi on?
Apple fanboi behavioural psychology
What is it with Apple Fanboi's? The diagram above was drawn with respect to the iPad a few weeks ago, but its all happening again with the iPhone 4 (replace Curry's with Carphone Warehouse in the UK etc etc).
The only conclusion I can come to that describes this odd behaviour is that Apple fanbois get sexual pleasure from queueing in front of Apple stores. Come to think of it, maybe its the only type of sexual pleasure they get in the real world
What is it with Apple Fanboi's? The diagram above was drawn with respect to the iPad a few weeks ago, but its all happening again with the iPhone 4 (replace Curry's with Carphone Warehouse in the UK etc etc).
The only conclusion I can come to that describes this odd behaviour is that Apple fanbois get sexual pleasure from queueing in front of Apple stores. Come to think of it, maybe its the only type of sexual pleasure they get in the real world
Value of a Twitter Follower? Tuppence
An opportunity to understand the economics of online influence - Mashable:
Virgin America has partnered with Klout, an analytics service that tracks users’ influence on Twitter (based on variables such as the quality and number of followers and retweets), to extend free flights (plus tax) to influencers in Toronto.
The offer includes free round-trip airfare (Wi-Fi included) between Toronto and San Francisco (SFO) or Los Angeles (LAX) between June 23 and August 23. Those who received invitations for the offer — whether or not they decide to accept the flight that comes with it — were also invited to Virgin America’s Toronto Launch Event on June 29.
...............
We spoke with one person who received (and plans to accept) the offer — Breanna Hughes, a dating blogger and Product Manager at Artez Interactive in Toronto. Hughes has nearly 3,000 followers and a Klout score of 42 on a scale of 100. She kindly shared a snapshot of her Klout profile and the offer e-mail, which we’ve posted below.
A quick look at expedia show that a return flight from Toronto to San Farncisco in the period is betwee £500 and $600, and if we use Breanna Hughes' 3000 followers thats about $0.17 to $0.2 per follower.
Of course, that is the market value - the cost of filling those seats, assuming as I do that they are probably empty otherwise, allows two observations:
(i) Firstly, the actual cost to the supplier is minimal - those planes are flying anyway so the marginal cost of a blogger bum on an otherwise empty seat is a fraction of theticket value - say 20% tops for all direct costs incurred - so its about $0.034 to $0.04 per follower. Lets assume that Breanna is at the low end of the folllower count and she is 80% of the mean, this allows us to assume its about $0.025 per follower - about half a nickel in US speak, about two pence (tuppence) in UK speak
(ii) Secondly, this is the way influencers will be rewarded in the short term - bartering between a dubious metric (Klout's "influence" metric is one of many and its impossible to tell who is right at the moment) and people who have surplus assets that have alarge arbitrage between face value and marginal cost.
Now, what I don't know is how many jollies per annum Breanna will be offered, lets assume one a month, so that follower value rises by about an order of magnitude - about a dime in US speak, or 20p in Uk terms
Virgin America has partnered with Klout, an analytics service that tracks users’ influence on Twitter (based on variables such as the quality and number of followers and retweets), to extend free flights (plus tax) to influencers in Toronto.
The offer includes free round-trip airfare (Wi-Fi included) between Toronto and San Francisco (SFO) or Los Angeles (LAX) between June 23 and August 23. Those who received invitations for the offer — whether or not they decide to accept the flight that comes with it — were also invited to Virgin America’s Toronto Launch Event on June 29.
...............
We spoke with one person who received (and plans to accept) the offer — Breanna Hughes, a dating blogger and Product Manager at Artez Interactive in Toronto. Hughes has nearly 3,000 followers and a Klout score of 42 on a scale of 100. She kindly shared a snapshot of her Klout profile and the offer e-mail, which we’ve posted below.
A quick look at expedia show that a return flight from Toronto to San Farncisco in the period is betwee £500 and $600, and if we use Breanna Hughes' 3000 followers thats about $0.17 to $0.2 per follower.
Of course, that is the market value - the cost of filling those seats, assuming as I do that they are probably empty otherwise, allows two observations:
(i) Firstly, the actual cost to the supplier is minimal - those planes are flying anyway so the marginal cost of a blogger bum on an otherwise empty seat is a fraction of theticket value - say 20% tops for all direct costs incurred - so its about $0.034 to $0.04 per follower. Lets assume that Breanna is at the low end of the folllower count and she is 80% of the mean, this allows us to assume its about $0.025 per follower - about half a nickel in US speak, about two pence (tuppence) in UK speak
(ii) Secondly, this is the way influencers will be rewarded in the short term - bartering between a dubious metric (Klout's "influence" metric is one of many and its impossible to tell who is right at the moment) and people who have surplus assets that have alarge arbitrage between face value and marginal cost.
Now, what I don't know is how many jollies per annum Breanna will be offered, lets assume one a month, so that follower value rises by about an order of magnitude - about a dime in US speak, or 20p in Uk terms
Value of a Twitter Follower? Tuppence
An opportunity to understand the economics of online influence - Mashable:
Virgin America has partnered with Klout, an analytics service that tracks users’ influence on Twitter (based on variables such as the quality and number of followers and retweets), to extend free flights (plus tax) to influencers in Toronto.
The offer includes free round-trip airfare (Wi-Fi included) between Toronto and San Francisco (SFO) or Los Angeles (LAX) between June 23 and August 23. Those who received invitations for the offer — whether or not they decide to accept the flight that comes with it — were also invited to Virgin America’s Toronto Launch Event on June 29.
...............
We spoke with one person who received (and plans to accept) the offer — Breanna Hughes, a dating blogger and Product Manager at Artez Interactive in Toronto. Hughes has nearly 3,000 followers and a Klout score of 42 on a scale of 100. She kindly shared a snapshot of her Klout profile and the offer e-mail, which we’ve posted below.
A quick look at expedia show that a return flight from Toronto to San Farncisco in the period is betwee £500 and $600, and if we use Breanna Hughes' 3000 followers thats about $0.17 to $0.2 per follower.
Of course, that is the market value - the cost of filling those seats, assuming as I do that they are probably empty otherwise, allows two observations:
(i) Firstly, the actual cost to the supplier is minimal - those planes are flying anyway so the marginal cost of a blogger bum on an otherwise empty seat is a fraction of theticket value - say 20% tops for all direct costs incurred - so its about $0.034 to $0.04 per follower. Lets assume that Breanna is at the low end of the folllower count and she is 80% of the mean, this allows us to assume its about $0.025 per follower - about half a nickel in US speak, about two pence (tuppence) in UK speak
(ii) Secondly, this is the way influencers will be rewarded in the short term - bartering between a dubious metric (Klout's "influence" metric is one of many and its impossible to tell who is right at the moment) and people who have surplus assets that have alarge arbitrage between face value and marginal cost.
Now, what I don't know is how many jollies per annum Breanna will be offered, lets assume one a month, so that follower value rises by about an order of magnitude - about a dime in US speak, or 20p in Uk terms
Virgin America has partnered with Klout, an analytics service that tracks users’ influence on Twitter (based on variables such as the quality and number of followers and retweets), to extend free flights (plus tax) to influencers in Toronto.
The offer includes free round-trip airfare (Wi-Fi included) between Toronto and San Francisco (SFO) or Los Angeles (LAX) between June 23 and August 23. Those who received invitations for the offer — whether or not they decide to accept the flight that comes with it — were also invited to Virgin America’s Toronto Launch Event on June 29.
...............
We spoke with one person who received (and plans to accept) the offer — Breanna Hughes, a dating blogger and Product Manager at Artez Interactive in Toronto. Hughes has nearly 3,000 followers and a Klout score of 42 on a scale of 100. She kindly shared a snapshot of her Klout profile and the offer e-mail, which we’ve posted below.
A quick look at expedia show that a return flight from Toronto to San Farncisco in the period is betwee £500 and $600, and if we use Breanna Hughes' 3000 followers thats about $0.17 to $0.2 per follower.
Of course, that is the market value - the cost of filling those seats, assuming as I do that they are probably empty otherwise, allows two observations:
(i) Firstly, the actual cost to the supplier is minimal - those planes are flying anyway so the marginal cost of a blogger bum on an otherwise empty seat is a fraction of theticket value - say 20% tops for all direct costs incurred - so its about $0.034 to $0.04 per follower. Lets assume that Breanna is at the low end of the folllower count and she is 80% of the mean, this allows us to assume its about $0.025 per follower - about half a nickel in US speak, about two pence (tuppence) in UK speak
(ii) Secondly, this is the way influencers will be rewarded in the short term - bartering between a dubious metric (Klout's "influence" metric is one of many and its impossible to tell who is right at the moment) and people who have surplus assets that have alarge arbitrage between face value and marginal cost.
Now, what I don't know is how many jollies per annum Breanna will be offered, lets assume one a month, so that follower value rises by about an order of magnitude - about a dime in US speak, or 20p in Uk terms
iPhone, Location, Privacy - which one of these is the odd one out?
Apple is the latest to get into the location data mining gold rush - LA Times:
Apple Inc. is now collecting the "precise," "real-time geographic location" of its users' iPhones, iPads and computers.
In an updated version of its privacy policy, the company added a paragraph noting that once users agree, Apple and unspecified "partners and licensees" may collect and store user location data.
And if you don't agree to the new T&C?
When users attempt to download apps or media from the iTunes store, they are prompted to agree to the new terms and conditions. Until they agree, they cannot download anything through the store.
Charming. Nothing like a spot of voluntary opt in via involuntary service cessation. This is but the start, as you can still switch your location tracker off on the iPhone - no doubt over time many functions willl just stop working if you do though.
Apple says the data is anonymous and does not personally identify users, but that's incorrect - as the LA times notes, large specific data sets can be used to identify people based on behavior patterns. Why the move - Advertising, of course:
On Monday, Apple also rolled out its new advertising platform, iAd, for the latest version of its iPhone operating system (iOS 4). The company may well be integrating the location information into its advertising system -- for instance, to help local shops sell coupons to users in the neighborhood.
They are already taking revenue from selling the device and aggregating/selling the content, to take a rake from location and Ad serving is as close to a total end to end value extraction as you can get.
The quid in this pro quo seems to be to give the vendor access to your location data too.
An increasing number of iPhone apps ask users for their location, which is then used by the application or even uploaded to the app's maker. Apps like the Twitter application Tweetie and Google Maps make frequent use of location data, either to help the user get oriented geographically or to associate the user's action with a specific location (as when a tweet is geotagged).
However, owing to the value chain lock-up there certainly won't be much value left for any application content provider (assuming there is any now), so this is not just caveat emptor, its caveat vendor as well.
One of the main points of mobile telephony over the last two decades has been its closeness to the user, and its use as a private device. I await with interest the public reaction to apps that won't work unless iPhone location beacon is turned "on". Maybe is just my view, but over the last decade many location tracking devices have been trialled and failed as people - by and large - do not like to be tracked all the time, or set the expectation that they are alwys trackable.
Apple Inc. is now collecting the "precise," "real-time geographic location" of its users' iPhones, iPads and computers.
In an updated version of its privacy policy, the company added a paragraph noting that once users agree, Apple and unspecified "partners and licensees" may collect and store user location data.
And if you don't agree to the new T&C?
When users attempt to download apps or media from the iTunes store, they are prompted to agree to the new terms and conditions. Until they agree, they cannot download anything through the store.
Charming. Nothing like a spot of voluntary opt in via involuntary service cessation. This is but the start, as you can still switch your location tracker off on the iPhone - no doubt over time many functions willl just stop working if you do though.
Apple says the data is anonymous and does not personally identify users, but that's incorrect - as the LA times notes, large specific data sets can be used to identify people based on behavior patterns. Why the move - Advertising, of course:
On Monday, Apple also rolled out its new advertising platform, iAd, for the latest version of its iPhone operating system (iOS 4). The company may well be integrating the location information into its advertising system -- for instance, to help local shops sell coupons to users in the neighborhood.
They are already taking revenue from selling the device and aggregating/selling the content, to take a rake from location and Ad serving is as close to a total end to end value extraction as you can get.
The quid in this pro quo seems to be to give the vendor access to your location data too.
An increasing number of iPhone apps ask users for their location, which is then used by the application or even uploaded to the app's maker. Apps like the Twitter application Tweetie and Google Maps make frequent use of location data, either to help the user get oriented geographically or to associate the user's action with a specific location (as when a tweet is geotagged).
However, owing to the value chain lock-up there certainly won't be much value left for any application content provider (assuming there is any now), so this is not just caveat emptor, its caveat vendor as well.
One of the main points of mobile telephony over the last two decades has been its closeness to the user, and its use as a private device. I await with interest the public reaction to apps that won't work unless iPhone location beacon is turned "on". Maybe is just my view, but over the last decade many location tracking devices have been trialled and failed as people - by and large - do not like to be tracked all the time, or set the expectation that they are alwys trackable.
How to Bluff your way at being South African
Vuvuzela, Makaraba and Bafana shirt - essential soccer gear in South Africa (Photo: Reuters)
I was in South Africa - my home country - last week (hence the lack of posts on Broadstuff). Now, as many of our readers may be aware, there is a small matter of the World Cup in South Africa at the moment. No doubt by now you are inspired by the undoubted current and future (all we have to do is beat France 4-0*....) success of our national team (Bafana Bafana - The Boys! The Boys!) to find their inner South African.
So, here are 10 points that you should memorise so that people will think you are the "Real Thing"
1. Flat Vowels (or Vaals, as we would pronounce it). No self respecting South African will ever use more than one vowel sound to join two consonants, no matter how many letters the word has. And of course if we can dispense with the vowel altogether, even better. So, Yu paak yor cah in the grudge.
2. Rrrrolll Yourrrr Rrrs - you know that Arrrrrr pirate sound you make once a year - well we do it everrry time that a worrrd has an rrr.
3. The glottal acceleration - many of the African languages have clicks etc, we don't use 'em in SA English, but do pronounce some words starting with vowels as if your breath was a sprinter coming out the blocks.
4. Yes is always "Ja" pronounced "Yah", except when its "Yebo".
5. No South African does things "in a minute", or "presently". Everything is done "just now". And we mean everything, except of course the things we will do "now now".
6. In SA to say you could "murder a Bagel" will bring understanding nods - Bagel is the word for a particularly irritating species, the male equivalent of the Jewish Princess, except being Jewish is totally optional. The female equivalent is a Kugel.
7. Being the "Rainbow Nation" there are naturally terms of endearment that the races use for one another - as an interesting experiment you could try randomly calling various fans of the beautiful game "kaffirs", "Klonkies", "goffels", "rockspiders", "rooineks" and see whose face lights up in delight at the realisation that you are "tuning them grief" and thus an opportunity to give you a "snotklap" (look it up) has arisen
8. For going to the Soccer (we call it soccer, not football) matches.....
9 .....ensure you have your Makaraba (hard hat festooned with all the symbols of fandom), take your Vuvuzela (very noisy trumpet), tank up on Dop (booze) before the match and yell Laduma! when your team scores and Eish! (with glottal accelleration) when they hit the post 5 minutes before the end of a 1-1 game.
10. Conversation in the game (when you are not blowing your vuvuzela) can be started with your neighbour by using the all time favourites:
- "The Referee is Blind" translates roughly as "Daai Fokkin Blinne Referee".
- "That gentleman is playacting for a foul" is (roughly) "Fokkin Moffie/Moegoe/Mompara/Mompie"
- "By jove - the referee has handed the South African goalkeeper a red card for an accidental collision, thereby ensuring they lose the game" is untranslateable on family blogs like this....
As to the necessary technology content, SA emains an enigma lght years ahead in many sevices - easpecially mobile ones - yet basics like broadband access and wifi are a rarity
*Sadly France were only beaten by 2-1 by The Boys and Uruguay failed to do the gentlemanly thing and score 4-0 vs Mexico to put Bafana Bafana through. Still, thinking about Bafana Bafana stats - win, draw, loss vs the 9th, 13th and 12th best teams in world is not bad when you're ranked 83rd! And if that fokkin blinne referee hadn't given the red card.....
I was in South Africa - my home country - last week (hence the lack of posts on Broadstuff). Now, as many of our readers may be aware, there is a small matter of the World Cup in South Africa at the moment. No doubt by now you are inspired by the undoubted current and future (all we have to do is beat France 4-0*....) success of our national team (Bafana Bafana - The Boys! The Boys!) to find their inner South African.
So, here are 10 points that you should memorise so that people will think you are the "Real Thing"
1. Flat Vowels (or Vaals, as we would pronounce it). No self respecting South African will ever use more than one vowel sound to join two consonants, no matter how many letters the word has. And of course if we can dispense with the vowel altogether, even better. So, Yu paak yor cah in the grudge.
2. Rrrrolll Yourrrr Rrrs - you know that Arrrrrr pirate sound you make once a year - well we do it everrry time that a worrrd has an rrr.
3. The glottal acceleration - many of the African languages have clicks etc, we don't use 'em in SA English, but do pronounce some words starting with vowels as if your breath was a sprinter coming out the blocks.
4. Yes is always "Ja" pronounced "Yah", except when its "Yebo".
5. No South African does things "in a minute", or "presently". Everything is done "just now". And we mean everything, except of course the things we will do "now now".
6. In SA to say you could "murder a Bagel" will bring understanding nods - Bagel is the word for a particularly irritating species, the male equivalent of the Jewish Princess, except being Jewish is totally optional. The female equivalent is a Kugel.
7. Being the "Rainbow Nation" there are naturally terms of endearment that the races use for one another - as an interesting experiment you could try randomly calling various fans of the beautiful game "kaffirs", "Klonkies", "goffels", "rockspiders", "rooineks" and see whose face lights up in delight at the realisation that you are "tuning them grief" and thus an opportunity to give you a "snotklap" (look it up) has arisen
8. For going to the Soccer (we call it soccer, not football) matches.....
9 .....ensure you have your Makaraba (hard hat festooned with all the symbols of fandom), take your Vuvuzela (very noisy trumpet), tank up on Dop (booze) before the match and yell Laduma! when your team scores and Eish! (with glottal accelleration) when they hit the post 5 minutes before the end of a 1-1 game.
10. Conversation in the game (when you are not blowing your vuvuzela) can be started with your neighbour by using the all time favourites:
- "The Referee is Blind" translates roughly as "Daai Fokkin Blinne Referee".
- "That gentleman is playacting for a foul" is (roughly) "Fokkin Moffie/Moegoe/Mompara/Mompie"
- "By jove - the referee has handed the South African goalkeeper a red card for an accidental collision, thereby ensuring they lose the game" is untranslateable on family blogs like this....
As to the necessary technology content, SA emains an enigma lght years ahead in many sevices - easpecially mobile ones - yet basics like broadband access and wifi are a rarity
*Sadly France were only beaten by 2-1 by The Boys and Uruguay failed to do the gentlemanly thing and score 4-0 vs Mexico to put Bafana Bafana through. Still, thinking about Bafana Bafana stats - win, draw, loss vs the 9th, 13th and 12th best teams in world is not bad when you're ranked 83rd! And if that fokkin blinne referee hadn't given the red card.....
4Chan - from /. to /b/ - the cycle of geek life
Danah Boyd on the attraction of /b/ (aka 4chan) to intellectuals and digital pundits:
Journalists and academics are clamoring to discuss and analyze 4chan. At first, it was all about discussing whether or not this community of 9.5 million mostly young mostly male internet people was evil or brilliant. Lately, the obsession focuses on anonymity, signaling that Chris’ TED talk set the frame for public discourse about 4chan.
If one were a tad cynical one would reflect that its only since its recent mainstream popularity that there has been a clamour, its been going for at least 5 years to my knowledge .
In addition, by the way, the convention on the site is you do not talk about it - fat chance now that Time has featured it
Boyd's view is that 4Chan is hacking the attention economy like earlier generations of hackers hacked The Man of their days (phones, secure systems etc) - 4Chan just carries on the tradition of (mainly) young males left to their own infernal devices:
As with security hackers, the attention hackers that are popping up today are a mixed bag. It’s easy to love the cultural ethos and despise some of the individuals or the individual acts. In recognizing the cultural power of the community represented by 4chan, I don’t mean to justify some of the truly hateful things that some individuals have done. But I am willing to laugh off some of the stupidity and find humor in the antics while also rejecting certain acts. I’m willing to lament the fact that it’s been 20 years and underground hacking culture is still mostly white and mostly male while also being stoked to see a new underground subculture emerge. Of course, it doesn’t look like it’ll be underground for long… And I can’t say that I’m too thrilled for every mom and pop and average teen to know about 4chan (which is precisely why I haven’t blogged about it before). But I do think that there’s something important about those invested in hacking the attention economy. And I do hope that we always have people around us reminding us to never take the internets too seriously.
At the end of the day its just another geek countercultural outlet, like the altnet was in the days Before Web, like /. (slashdot) was in Web 1.0, but its been officially name as this generation's counterculture (Sez Time magazine) so no doubt there will soon be a raft of books and blogs written about it.....
But it has one very useful principle - it is arguing strongly for anomymity and non persistence on the 'Net, which is (in my view) a key componenet of privacy - and makes 4Chan well worth supporting. I have embedded the talk (by 4Chan founder "moot") from TED above.
The Google Privacy Algorithm
Google Privacy Algorithms - Google Streetcars desire user data
It would seem those nice people at Google were forgetting the "Do No Evil" motto when it came to sending out their StreetCars with the desire to sniff Wifi while snapping Pix - El Reg:
The software worked with Kismet - packet-sniffing software. gslite then parsed header information from any unsecured wireless network it passed. Kismet hopped channels five times per second in order to grab as many networks as possible.
The paper said that frames from encrypted networks were discarded by gslite. Unencrypted bodies were written straight to disc, but not parsed by the program.
Privacy International believe this represents criminal intent - data protection law does not normally allow the interception of communications in this way.
PI said: "This action by Google cannot be blamed on the alleged 'single engineer' who wrote the code. It goes to the heart of a systematic failure of management and of duty of care."
Gslite made no attempt to parse the body of any messages or file transfers, but it also collected numerical identifiers of kit attached to the network.
The program linked the information collected with GPS data from the car. The analysis notes that the GPS system provides geolocation data rather more slowly than network data so gslite corrects the difference between the two
before storing the file.
PI's blog post is here, and it also has a link to the pdf report.
The "rogue engineer" theory was further undermined by Google's legal eagles' earlier moves to patent the network sniffing technology.
Anyone remember the "Rogue Interns" that were wheeled out at various times by companies last year when they ushed the boat ou too far?
Anyway, we have - after painstaking analysis - realised we can discern the Google Algorithm used for making privacy decisions in this case (see above diagram). One wonders if it applies more generally.....
It would seem those nice people at Google were forgetting the "Do No Evil" motto when it came to sending out their StreetCars with the desire to sniff Wifi while snapping Pix - El Reg:
The software worked with Kismet - packet-sniffing software. gslite then parsed header information from any unsecured wireless network it passed. Kismet hopped channels five times per second in order to grab as many networks as possible.
The paper said that frames from encrypted networks were discarded by gslite. Unencrypted bodies were written straight to disc, but not parsed by the program.
Privacy International believe this represents criminal intent - data protection law does not normally allow the interception of communications in this way.
PI said: "This action by Google cannot be blamed on the alleged 'single engineer' who wrote the code. It goes to the heart of a systematic failure of management and of duty of care."
Gslite made no attempt to parse the body of any messages or file transfers, but it also collected numerical identifiers of kit attached to the network.
The program linked the information collected with GPS data from the car. The analysis notes that the GPS system provides geolocation data rather more slowly than network data so gslite corrects the difference between the two
before storing the file.
PI's blog post is here, and it also has a link to the pdf report.
The "rogue engineer" theory was further undermined by Google's legal eagles' earlier moves to patent the network sniffing technology.
Anyone remember the "Rogue Interns" that were wheeled out at various times by companies last year when they ushed the boat ou too far?
Anyway, we have - after painstaking analysis - realised we can discern the Google Algorithm used for making privacy decisions in this case (see above diagram). One wonders if it applies more generally.....
Why Apple had to fire Steve Jobs then....
There is an article in the Daily Beast about John Sculley regretting firing Steve Jobs:
In the annals of blown calls, it ranks somewhere between the publishers who turned down the first Harry Potter book and baseball umpire Jim Joyce’s instantly infamous perfect-game flub last week. It was the spring of 1985, and the board of Apple Computer decided it no longer needed the services of one Steven P. Jobs.
Well, not necessarily - the reason is in another paragraph:
The key antagonist in the tech world’s biggest soap opera of a quarter-century ago: John Sculley, the Pepsi executive whom Apple’s board brought in as CEO to oversee Jobs and grow the company—similar to Eric Schmidt’s role with Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin—in 1983. A marketing whiz who had invented the “Pepsi Challenge” campaign, Sculley wrestled with low Macintosh sales and a need to bring some order to the creative chaos Jobs had unleashed. Sculley found that he couldn’t rein in Jobs—and decided he had to go.
Lest we forget, in the mid 1980's Apple had spectacularly lost the PC battle against Microsoft, released the Macintosh to universal disinterest and was shortly to inflict the Lisa on the world, Organisationally the company was in chaos, and it needed firm management to put in basic disciplines and good management processes - all that boring stuff. Its fairly well known that there comes a time in any startup where it has to shift its management culture, and often the founders are not ready at that stage to step up to the plate. In Mr Jobs case, to his eternal credit he went on a hero's journey to return ready to run the company again.
Sculley thinks they could have sorted out their differences:
Sculley says he accepts responsibility for his role but also believes that Apple’s board should have understood that Jobs needed to be in charge. “My sense is that it probably would never have broken down between Steve and me if we had figured out different roles,” Sculley says. “Maybe he should have been the CEO and I should have been the president. It should have been worked out ahead of time, and that’s one of those things you look to a really good board to do.”
From my experience of turnarounds I'd argue that if Mr Jobs had stayed at the company then, no matter how it was organised, he would have been a very disruptive influence (as he was, lets not forget) and it would not have been able to get all the basic corporate infrastructure that it needed to install to grow to the stage where he could come back and run he machine. I also think he learned a lot in those intervening years that made him a different person when he returned.
As to the Board though, do read this:
Board member Arthur Rock, a venture capitalist who helped found Intel, among other outfits, dubbed Jobs and his co-founder Steve Wozniak as “very unappealing people” in the early days. “Jobs came into the office, as he does now, dressed in Levi’s, but at that time that wasn’t quite the thing to do,” Rock told a little-noticed University of California, Berkeley venture-capital oral-history project. “And I believe he had a goatee and a mustache and long hair—and he had just come back from six months in India with a guru, learning about life. I’m not sure, but it may have been a while since he had a bath.”
Tut - measuring people by what they look like....wouldn't happen today as much, now would it?
Well.....?
In the annals of blown calls, it ranks somewhere between the publishers who turned down the first Harry Potter book and baseball umpire Jim Joyce’s instantly infamous perfect-game flub last week. It was the spring of 1985, and the board of Apple Computer decided it no longer needed the services of one Steven P. Jobs.
Well, not necessarily - the reason is in another paragraph:
The key antagonist in the tech world’s biggest soap opera of a quarter-century ago: John Sculley, the Pepsi executive whom Apple’s board brought in as CEO to oversee Jobs and grow the company—similar to Eric Schmidt’s role with Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin—in 1983. A marketing whiz who had invented the “Pepsi Challenge” campaign, Sculley wrestled with low Macintosh sales and a need to bring some order to the creative chaos Jobs had unleashed. Sculley found that he couldn’t rein in Jobs—and decided he had to go.
Lest we forget, in the mid 1980's Apple had spectacularly lost the PC battle against Microsoft, released the Macintosh to universal disinterest and was shortly to inflict the Lisa on the world, Organisationally the company was in chaos, and it needed firm management to put in basic disciplines and good management processes - all that boring stuff. Its fairly well known that there comes a time in any startup where it has to shift its management culture, and often the founders are not ready at that stage to step up to the plate. In Mr Jobs case, to his eternal credit he went on a hero's journey to return ready to run the company again.
Sculley thinks they could have sorted out their differences:
Sculley says he accepts responsibility for his role but also believes that Apple’s board should have understood that Jobs needed to be in charge. “My sense is that it probably would never have broken down between Steve and me if we had figured out different roles,” Sculley says. “Maybe he should have been the CEO and I should have been the president. It should have been worked out ahead of time, and that’s one of those things you look to a really good board to do.”
From my experience of turnarounds I'd argue that if Mr Jobs had stayed at the company then, no matter how it was organised, he would have been a very disruptive influence (as he was, lets not forget) and it would not have been able to get all the basic corporate infrastructure that it needed to install to grow to the stage where he could come back and run he machine. I also think he learned a lot in those intervening years that made him a different person when he returned.
As to the Board though, do read this:
Board member Arthur Rock, a venture capitalist who helped found Intel, among other outfits, dubbed Jobs and his co-founder Steve Wozniak as “very unappealing people” in the early days. “Jobs came into the office, as he does now, dressed in Levi’s, but at that time that wasn’t quite the thing to do,” Rock told a little-noticed University of California, Berkeley venture-capital oral-history project. “And I believe he had a goatee and a mustache and long hair—and he had just come back from six months in India with a guru, learning about life. I’m not sure, but it may have been a while since he had a bath.”
Tut - measuring people by what they look like....wouldn't happen today as much, now would it?
Well.....?
iPhone 4G - Reality vs Telegraph
.New iPhone 4G vs Competitors (Source The iPhone Blog)
Now that the iPhone 4G is announced, as a way of reviewing it I thought I would look at the rather bad Torygraph Pre-Review piece and compare their views with the reality - as sort of post pre-review analysis of mainstream media journalism as wel as an iPhone review. There has also been a rather good analysis of the iPhone vs the other major competitors on TiPPB which is summarised in their chart above.
So, on to comparing reality vs the Torygraph analysis - here is the Torygrah (italics) vs reality
1) It’s expensive: Buy the top-of-the-range Blackberry or Android handset and you will still pay a lot less than the extortionate prices Apple charge
Well, its a bit more than the others but not stupidly overpriced - in fact by Apple standards its (shock) very reasonable
2) It’s anti-technology: When the iPhone launched it was cutting edge – now as other manufacturers announce, for instance, that you can use their phones as shareable wifi hot spots, Apple says no.
Well, its 4G, with a new OS, an on board gyroscope - and better incremental specs in most of its facets than the others so they will have to bring out new models
3) No Flash: The iPhone, the phone that promised to put the web into everybody’s pockets, can’t even show you most of it, because it can’t handle Flash graphics.
No flash.
4) No multitasking: Tried instant messaging on an iPhone? Oh yes, you have to open the app to see if you’ve got a message.
New iOS 4 allows multitasking.
5) Its battery life is terrible
They are claiming c 40% better life, which would put it on roughly a par
6) Developing apps for it is costing you money: The special version of the BBC iPlayer, of Natwest Phone Banking, of Eon’s meter reader – developing all of these came out of money that could have been channelled away from a self-important minority and towards more generally useful ideas.
At least the Apple store has a lot of Aps. Besides, most are developed speculatively so cost the user nothing in opportunity costs.
7) It comes with offensively bad headphones
They all do. But its the offensively bad music they play that really causes the problems. Next....
8 ) It’s not very well designed
Oh come on, Apple set the standard for design in this space and remains on form with this.
9) It charges for satnav: In an age when Nokia and Google Android provide completely free mapping and satnav facilities
It does indeed - but les autres are subsidising this in an attempt to lure people away from Apple.
10) Those iPod docks are holding back better technologies
Much like Betamax, Wankel engines and countless other marvellous technologies that were held back by the sheer popularity of existing stuff that basically did what its users wanted.
So - what would you give the Torygraph in accuracy? I think 2 out of 10 (Flash, Satnav) as those are factual. Nos 7, 8 and 10 are opinions and the kindest thing one can say about them is that they are irrelaevantly counter-intuitive. The rest are just wrong.
As to the iPhone 4G - well, in summary it is a small step ahead of the others rather than the gamechange that the original iPhone represented, but it probably does enough to keep the bulk of current iPhone users from migrating to mther devices, and will also competitively recruit some new users.
Now that the iPhone 4G is announced, as a way of reviewing it I thought I would look at the rather bad Torygraph Pre-Review piece and compare their views with the reality - as sort of post pre-review analysis of mainstream media journalism as wel as an iPhone review. There has also been a rather good analysis of the iPhone vs the other major competitors on TiPPB which is summarised in their chart above.
So, on to comparing reality vs the Torygraph analysis - here is the Torygrah (italics) vs reality
1) It’s expensive: Buy the top-of-the-range Blackberry or Android handset and you will still pay a lot less than the extortionate prices Apple charge
Well, its a bit more than the others but not stupidly overpriced - in fact by Apple standards its (shock) very reasonable
2) It’s anti-technology: When the iPhone launched it was cutting edge – now as other manufacturers announce, for instance, that you can use their phones as shareable wifi hot spots, Apple says no.
Well, its 4G, with a new OS, an on board gyroscope - and better incremental specs in most of its facets than the others so they will have to bring out new models
3) No Flash: The iPhone, the phone that promised to put the web into everybody’s pockets, can’t even show you most of it, because it can’t handle Flash graphics.
No flash.
4) No multitasking: Tried instant messaging on an iPhone? Oh yes, you have to open the app to see if you’ve got a message.
New iOS 4 allows multitasking.
5) Its battery life is terrible
They are claiming c 40% better life, which would put it on roughly a par
6) Developing apps for it is costing you money: The special version of the BBC iPlayer, of Natwest Phone Banking, of Eon’s meter reader – developing all of these came out of money that could have been channelled away from a self-important minority and towards more generally useful ideas.
At least the Apple store has a lot of Aps. Besides, most are developed speculatively so cost the user nothing in opportunity costs.
7) It comes with offensively bad headphones
They all do. But its the offensively bad music they play that really causes the problems. Next....
8 ) It’s not very well designed
Oh come on, Apple set the standard for design in this space and remains on form with this.
9) It charges for satnav: In an age when Nokia and Google Android provide completely free mapping and satnav facilities
It does indeed - but les autres are subsidising this in an attempt to lure people away from Apple.
10) Those iPod docks are holding back better technologies
Much like Betamax, Wankel engines and countless other marvellous technologies that were held back by the sheer popularity of existing stuff that basically did what its users wanted.
So - what would you give the Torygraph in accuracy? I think 2 out of 10 (Flash, Satnav) as those are factual. Nos 7, 8 and 10 are opinions and the kindest thing one can say about them is that they are irrelaevantly counter-intuitive. The rest are just wrong.
As to the iPhone 4G - well, in summary it is a small step ahead of the others rather than the gamechange that the original iPhone represented, but it probably does enough to keep the bulk of current iPhone users from migrating to mther devices, and will also competitively recruit some new users.
iPhone 4G Pre-Reviews
What's the best way to scoop the review of a much heralded new piece of geek bling? One option is to borrow it from a bloke in a bar, though that brings its own problems. Another is to review it before its even been released, and give it a foul review, as the Torygraph did last week for the Apple iPhone 4G, due to be outed today. Here are their 10 main points:
1) It’s expensive: Buy the top-of-the-range Blackberry or Android handset and you will still pay a lot less than the extortionate prices Apple charge. If the iPhone weren’t made by Apple, networks would have had to start giving it away on £30 a month tariffs years ago.
2) It’s anti-technology: When the iPhone launched it was cutting edge – now as other manufacturers announce, for instance, that you can use their phones as shareable wifi hot spots, Apple says no. Not because of some spurious “user experience” argument, but because of economics. When will they learn that it’s customers – supply and demand – that should dictate feature availability?
3) No Flash: The iPhone, the phone that promised to put the web into everybody’s pockets, can’t even show you most of it, because it can’t handle Flash graphics. Google Android can, in the latest version (OS 2.2), and it’s going to be available free on a lot of budget tariffs.
4) No multitasking: Tried instant messaging on an iPhone? Oh yes, you have to open the app to see if you’ve got a message. Genius. If Apple announces multitasking next it will be an improvement – but there’ll be no apology for the way it’s treated customers in the past, and no guarantee it won’t behave similarly shoddily in the future.
5) Its battery life is terrible: This isn’t a problem unique to Apple, but look at phones by companies such as HTC – multitasking, better cameras, better screens, all draining their batteries far more – and yet the iPhone, with its undemanding technology, still only offers equal performance.
6) Developing apps for it is costing you money: The special version of the BBC iPlayer, of Natwest Phone Banking, of Eon’s meter reader – developing all of these came out of money that could have been channelled away from a self-important minority and towards more generally useful ideas.
7) It comes with offensively bad headphones: Sit next to somebody using the original iPhone or iPod headphones and you can hear everything they can. It’s another example of Apple charging premium prices, but delivering a dressed up, budget product.
8 ) It’s not very well designed: Use the iPhone as a phone and it’s not got great reception, nor is it particularly comfortable to use for long periods. It’s a computer that happens to have a phone bolted on – jack of two trades, but master of neither.
9) It charges for satnav: In an age when Nokia and Google Android provide completely free mapping and satnav facilities, the cheapest way you can turn your overpriced iPhone into a satnav is with a £19.99 app. Bargain.
10) Those iPod docks are holding back better technologies: As every hotel increasingly thinks it should provide iPod docks, the momentum behind this technology is only growing. But if it wasn’t for the iPod and iPhone’s ubiquity, there’d be more wifi radios, more new technologies and a range of different options, competing and driving innovation.
They then committed the ultimate sin in blogging, by moderating the comments to remove all the fanbois arriving with their burning digital pitchforks, so that (allegedly anyway) only those who agree with them saw the the bloggy dawn light. There has been Lots of Harrumphing about this (probably because a lot of people wished they'd thought of it first, I'll warrant) and of cours e- from a fanboi point of view - its all wrong, wrong, wrong.
Or is it? Lets just go through those points:
1) It’s expensive: Buy the top-of-the-range Blackberry or Android handset and you will still pay a lot less than the extortionate prices Apple charge
Leaving aside that no-one knows the exact pricing, overcharging for stuff has always been Apple's schtick - they have charged more for the same (but beautifully branded) stuff for 40 years now, and about 15% of any market love them for it. Next...
2) It’s anti-technology: When the iPhone launched it was cutting edge – now as other manufacturers announce, for instance, that you can use their phones as shareable wifi hot spots, Apple says no.
Well, its 4G, with a new OS, so thats a bit disingenuous never mind disingenerous
3) No Flash: The iPhone, the phone that promised to put the web into everybody’s pockets, can’t even show you most of it, because it can’t handle Flash graphics.
Actually, very few mobiles (as a % of total usage) today can use Flash (but as Benjamin Ellis comments that quite a few of the non-Apple ones coming along will, however). Let's see what Apple does over the next 6 months.
4) No multitasking: Tried instant messaging on an iPhone? Oh yes, you have to open the app to see if you’ve got a message.
Well, in theory that is half the point - a new OS that is multitasking
5) Its battery life is terrible
It's a smartphone. Next..... (OK, OK its not the best battery, but all the powerful smartphones are pretty big battery chewers)
6) Developing apps for it is costing you money: The special version of the BBC iPlayer, of Natwest Phone Banking, of Eon’s meter reader – developing all of these came out of money that could have been channelled away from a self-important minority and towards more generally useful ideas.
Nah, those geeks in garrets and garages actually develop all this stuff in the belief they will be paid in user uptake and subscriptions. Virtually no one makes any money though - in fact its a marvellous system as its all the creators paying to create stuff we largely use for free. Fools.
7) It comes with offensively bad headphones
They all do. But its the offensively bad music they play that really causes the problems. Next....
8 ) It’s not very well designed
'Course not - its an Apple. They deliberately design ugly stuff so that they can sell it at a lower price than anyone else. Not.
9) It charges for satnav: In an age when Nokia and Google Android provide completely free mapping and satnav facilities
It does indeed - les autres are subsidising this in an attempt to lure people away from Apple.
10) Those iPod docks are holding back better technologies
Much like Betamax, Wankel engines and countless other marvellous technologies that were held back by the sheer popularity of existing stuff that basically did what its users wanted.
We are anything but Apple fanbois (just type in "Apple" in the blog search) and tend to cleave somewhat to the view in "Stuff White People Like" that Apple is largely bought by people who need to feel they are creative etc, but I must say if you were doing a Pre-Review based on zero knowledge of the pre-released product you could do a better extrapolation of what Apple is likely to do, and where the pros and cons are.
In short I'd say the Torygraph review scores about 2/10 tops in accuracy, but 8/10 in linkbaiting. Which was the point, after all, I suspect - they don't make their money from flogging 'phones.
Nor, as some wags would suggest, from accurate reporting
1) It’s expensive: Buy the top-of-the-range Blackberry or Android handset and you will still pay a lot less than the extortionate prices Apple charge. If the iPhone weren’t made by Apple, networks would have had to start giving it away on £30 a month tariffs years ago.
2) It’s anti-technology: When the iPhone launched it was cutting edge – now as other manufacturers announce, for instance, that you can use their phones as shareable wifi hot spots, Apple says no. Not because of some spurious “user experience” argument, but because of economics. When will they learn that it’s customers – supply and demand – that should dictate feature availability?
3) No Flash: The iPhone, the phone that promised to put the web into everybody’s pockets, can’t even show you most of it, because it can’t handle Flash graphics. Google Android can, in the latest version (OS 2.2), and it’s going to be available free on a lot of budget tariffs.
4) No multitasking: Tried instant messaging on an iPhone? Oh yes, you have to open the app to see if you’ve got a message. Genius. If Apple announces multitasking next it will be an improvement – but there’ll be no apology for the way it’s treated customers in the past, and no guarantee it won’t behave similarly shoddily in the future.
5) Its battery life is terrible: This isn’t a problem unique to Apple, but look at phones by companies such as HTC – multitasking, better cameras, better screens, all draining their batteries far more – and yet the iPhone, with its undemanding technology, still only offers equal performance.
6) Developing apps for it is costing you money: The special version of the BBC iPlayer, of Natwest Phone Banking, of Eon’s meter reader – developing all of these came out of money that could have been channelled away from a self-important minority and towards more generally useful ideas.
7) It comes with offensively bad headphones: Sit next to somebody using the original iPhone or iPod headphones and you can hear everything they can. It’s another example of Apple charging premium prices, but delivering a dressed up, budget product.
8 ) It’s not very well designed: Use the iPhone as a phone and it’s not got great reception, nor is it particularly comfortable to use for long periods. It’s a computer that happens to have a phone bolted on – jack of two trades, but master of neither.
9) It charges for satnav: In an age when Nokia and Google Android provide completely free mapping and satnav facilities, the cheapest way you can turn your overpriced iPhone into a satnav is with a £19.99 app. Bargain.
10) Those iPod docks are holding back better technologies: As every hotel increasingly thinks it should provide iPod docks, the momentum behind this technology is only growing. But if it wasn’t for the iPod and iPhone’s ubiquity, there’d be more wifi radios, more new technologies and a range of different options, competing and driving innovation.
They then committed the ultimate sin in blogging, by moderating the comments to remove all the fanbois arriving with their burning digital pitchforks, so that (allegedly anyway) only those who agree with them saw the the bloggy dawn light. There has been Lots of Harrumphing about this (probably because a lot of people wished they'd thought of it first, I'll warrant) and of cours e- from a fanboi point of view - its all wrong, wrong, wrong.
Or is it? Lets just go through those points:
1) It’s expensive: Buy the top-of-the-range Blackberry or Android handset and you will still pay a lot less than the extortionate prices Apple charge
Leaving aside that no-one knows the exact pricing, overcharging for stuff has always been Apple's schtick - they have charged more for the same (but beautifully branded) stuff for 40 years now, and about 15% of any market love them for it. Next...
2) It’s anti-technology: When the iPhone launched it was cutting edge – now as other manufacturers announce, for instance, that you can use their phones as shareable wifi hot spots, Apple says no.
Well, its 4G, with a new OS, so thats a bit disingenuous never mind disingenerous
3) No Flash: The iPhone, the phone that promised to put the web into everybody’s pockets, can’t even show you most of it, because it can’t handle Flash graphics.
Actually, very few mobiles (as a % of total usage) today can use Flash (but as Benjamin Ellis comments that quite a few of the non-Apple ones coming along will, however). Let's see what Apple does over the next 6 months.
4) No multitasking: Tried instant messaging on an iPhone? Oh yes, you have to open the app to see if you’ve got a message.
Well, in theory that is half the point - a new OS that is multitasking
5) Its battery life is terrible
It's a smartphone. Next..... (OK, OK its not the best battery, but all the powerful smartphones are pretty big battery chewers)
6) Developing apps for it is costing you money: The special version of the BBC iPlayer, of Natwest Phone Banking, of Eon’s meter reader – developing all of these came out of money that could have been channelled away from a self-important minority and towards more generally useful ideas.
Nah, those geeks in garrets and garages actually develop all this stuff in the belief they will be paid in user uptake and subscriptions. Virtually no one makes any money though - in fact its a marvellous system as its all the creators paying to create stuff we largely use for free. Fools.
7) It comes with offensively bad headphones
They all do. But its the offensively bad music they play that really causes the problems. Next....
8 ) It’s not very well designed
'Course not - its an Apple. They deliberately design ugly stuff so that they can sell it at a lower price than anyone else. Not.
9) It charges for satnav: In an age when Nokia and Google Android provide completely free mapping and satnav facilities
It does indeed - les autres are subsidising this in an attempt to lure people away from Apple.
10) Those iPod docks are holding back better technologies
Much like Betamax, Wankel engines and countless other marvellous technologies that were held back by the sheer popularity of existing stuff that basically did what its users wanted.
We are anything but Apple fanbois (just type in "Apple" in the blog search) and tend to cleave somewhat to the view in "Stuff White People Like" that Apple is largely bought by people who need to feel they are creative etc, but I must say if you were doing a Pre-Review based on zero knowledge of the pre-released product you could do a better extrapolation of what Apple is likely to do, and where the pros and cons are.
In short I'd say the Torygraph review scores about 2/10 tops in accuracy, but 8/10 in linkbaiting. Which was the point, after all, I suspect - they don't make their money from flogging 'phones.
Nor, as some wags would suggest, from accurate reporting
Facebook and the Friendship Algorithm
Techcrunch echoing a view we discussed several days ago, to wit that Facebook has privacy invasion in its DNA.
The more I look at Facebook, the more Ithink it's culture is possibly something that would emerge if Dr Sheldon Cooper was ever let loose on Social Net design.
Here he is explaining his Friendship Algorithm.... you can just imagine this sort of conversation going on at You Know Who HQ .
