Showing posts with label making money. Show all posts

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Making Easy Money

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Bench Craft Company on the topic

Charlie Sheen’s use of technology and web 2.0 has earned him big dollars and a ‘winning’ formula for his own personal brand.

The Two And A Half Men star has greatly benefited from his own ability to embrace the internet, exploring all the marketing tools available to him. From breaking a twitter record, to hosting his own internet show on Ustream, the actor has done what few in Hollywood have ever achieved. Parody videos created by fans and websites dedicated to his one-liners are giving the actor non-stop free promotion and this in turn has created an audience of marketers for Charlie Sheen.

His infamous ABC interview gave birth to many of the viral video spoofs we have seen of his ‘radical’ behavior, which in turn, has fueled his twitter fan growth, and other media interview requests. With so many people discussing and sharing his antics, his own brand of controversy has been implanted onto the web, and has helped him sell tickets for his tour dates.

On top of that, Sheen’s regular updates with his fans on twitter provide a direct relationship and route to market. Sure that sounds a little cold, but he does have a following he can reach out to about his products.

Looking at what he did this week, Sheen took the next step in his own web fueled marketing campaign by making a self-parody video. This clever twist gave yet another viral hit to his name, as bloggers and social media re-posted and discussed how outrageous it was to see him spoof himself.

With many dates left on Charlie Sheen’s tour, the actor has a non-stop ‘Bi-Winning’ 24/7 marketing campaign, and other celebrities in the entertainment industry should learn from his online success.

Charlie Sheen’s use of technology and web 2.0 has earned him big dollars and a ‘winning’ formula for his own personal brand.

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NFL owners, union resume mediation in Minneapolis

The NFL and its locked-out players have completed their first day of mediation under a court order and will meet again Friday as they try to resolve their labor dispute.

bench craft company

Great news: Working population percentage drops to three-decade ...

Great news: Working population percentage drops to three-decade low.

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Groundwater radiation level at nuke plant rises: TEPCO | Kyodo News

The concentration levels of radioactive iodine and cesium in groundwater near the troubled Nos. 1 and 2 reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant have increased up to several dozen times in one week, suggesting that toxic ...

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Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak said in an interview this week that he would consider returning to an active role at the company he helped start if asked.

During an interview in England this week, Wozniak said, "I'd consider it, yeah," when asked whether he would play a more active role if asked, Reuters reports.

Wozniak, Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne founded Apple Computer in 1976. Wozniak left his full-time role with the company in 1987, but remains an employee and shareholder of Apple.

Since leaving Apple, Wozniak has been involved in a wide range of entrepreneurial and philanthropic endeavors. He currently serves as Chief Scientist for storage company Fusion-io.

Meanwhile, Jobs is currently taking an indefinite leave of absence to focus on his health, though he remains CEO of Apple and continues to be involved in strategic decisions.

Wozniak, who has widely been acknowledged as the technical genius behind Apple's early success, believes that he has a lot to offer the company he helped start, which went on to become the world's second-largest company in terms of market value.

"There's just an awful lot I know about Apple products and competing products that has some relevance, some meaning. They're my own feelings, though," Wozniak said during the interview.

When asked his opinion on Apple today, Wozniak praised the company for its track record with recent products. "Unbelievable," he said, "The products, one after another, quality and hits."

Even so, Wozniak admitted that he'd prefer Apple's devices to be more open, so he can "get in there and add [his] own touches." Last December, Wozniak revealed that he had purchased a DIY kit for the iPhone 4 and "modded" the device into the as-yet-unreleased white version.

"My thinking is that Apple could be more open and not lose sales," said Wozniak, while adding, "I'm sure they're making the right decisions for the right reasons for Apple."

Wozniak has been committed to openness since the beginning. In December, Wozniak told reporters that he didn't design the original Apple I to make a lot of money and had given the designs away for free after his former employer HP showed no interest in the computer.

As rumors of a later-than-usual iPhone launch for 2011 persist, a new report reveals that the notoriously secretive Apple is being even more careful than usual when dealing with overseas suppliers.

"Apple is keeping its iPhone 5 cards extra close to the vest on this launch to avoid a falloff in iPhone 4 demand ahead of a refresh, especially given the February launch of the CDMA iPhone 4 with Verizon," Analyst Brian White with Ticonderoga Securities said in a note to investors on Friday. He believes that the iPhone 5 could still launch in June or July, as previous models have.

White noted that various rumors have pointed toward a launch later than June this year for the fifth-generation iPhone. One report from March alleged that Apple has not even begun ordering components for the anticipated "iPhone 5," and the device is slated to arrive in the company's 2012 fiscal year, which begins in late September.

And a third report alleged that Apple is working on a major revamp of iOS, its mobile operating system, for version 5.0. New features like cloud-based storage of music, photos and video are rumored to arrive in the update this fall, likely alongside new iPhone hardware.

But despite all of those reports, White isn't yet convinced that the iPhone 5 will be introduced later than its typical June or July timeframe.

"Although we do not have a smoking gun that definitively rules out a delayed autumn unveiling or one that supports a launch this summer, there is a pattern of activity in motion with the supply chain that makes us question a delayed launch," he said.

White also cited sources who indicated that iPad sales could reach up to 40 million units in calendar year 2011. And supply chain sources also indicated that disruption from the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan will actually end up benefitting Apple, as suppliers will "rush to support Apple at the expense of competitors."

The analyst already revealed earlier this week that Apple has been offering upfront cash payments to component suppliers in order to secure components in the wake of the disaster in Japan. Apple has apparently also been using a "three cover guarantee," referring to capacity, stock and price, to block out competitors and prevent them from building ample supply of devices.

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The PPIC study Kolko co-authored sheds light on why historically California’s economy has grown on pace with the national economy even though it usually ranks low in surveys of states whose laws are favorable to business.

While the research suggests many factors that determine long-term economic growth lie beyond the reach of policy makers, Kolko cautioned that policy could still someday trump warm, sunny days on the Pacific coast.

“If California loses its ability to incubate and encourage fast growing industries to be here, that would be unfortunate” in the long term, she said.

Kolko identified two policies in particular, a simpler tax structure rather than a lower tax rate, and a lower share of government expenditure on welfare and transfer payments, as means of hastening economic expansion.

Over the years, entrepreneurs and corporate executives have devised any number of clever ways for getting rich off the working poor, but you'd have to look long and hard to find one more diabolically inventive than the RAL. Say you have a $2,000 tax refund due and you don't want to wait a week or two for the IRS to deposit that money in your bank account. Your tax preparer would be delighted to act as the middleman for a very short-term bank loan—the RAL. You get your check that day or the next, minus various fees and interest charges, and in return sign your pending refund over to the bank. Within 15 days, the IRS wires your refund straight to the lender. It's a safe bet for the banks, but that hasn't stopped them from charging astronomical interest rates. Until this tax year, the IRS was even kind enough to let lenders know when potential borrowers were likely to have their refund garnished because they owed back taxes, say, or were behind on child support.

Hewitt didn't invent the refund anticipation loan. That distinction belongs to Ross Longfield, who dreamed up the idea in 1987 and took it to H&R Block CEO Thomas Bloch. "I'm explaining it," Longfield recalls, "but Tom is sitting there going, 'I don't know; I don't know if people are going to want to do that.'"

Tax-prep shops are as common as fast-food joints in many low-income neighborhoods—there are at least half a dozen on one three-block stretch of South Broadway in Yonkers, N.Y., where these photographs were taken. A few offer reasonably priced accounting, while others charge hundreds of dollars for 20 minutes of work. But Longfield knew. He worked for Beneficial Corp., a subprime lender specializing in small, high-interest loans for customers who needed to finance a new refrigerator or dining-room set. His instincts told him the RAL would be a big hit—as did the polling and focus groups he organized. "Everything we did suggested people would love it—love it to death," he says.

He also knew Beneficial would make a killing if he could convince tax preparers—in exchange for a cut of the proceeds—to peddle this new breed of loan on his employer's behalf. Ultimately, Longfield persuaded H&R Block to sign up. But no one was as smitten as John Hewitt—who understood that people earning $15,000 or $20,000 or $25,000 a year live in a perpetual state of financial turmoil. Hewitt began opening outposts in the inner cities, Rust Belt towns, depressed rural areas—anywhere the misery index was high. "That was the low-hanging fruit," he says. "Going into lower-income areas and delivering refunds quicker was where the opportunity was."

Customers wanting a RAL paid Jackson Hewitt a $24 application fee, a $25 processing fee, and a $2 electronic-filing fee, plus 4 percent of the loan amount. On a $2,000 refund, that meant $131 in charges—equivalent to an annual interest rate of about 170 percent—not to mention the few hundred bucks you might spend for tax preparation. "Essentially, they're charging people triple-digit interest rates to borrow their own money," says Chi Chi Wu, a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center.

In 1988, the first year he began offering the loans, Hewitt owned 49 stores in three states. Five years later, he had 878 stores in 37 states. And five years after that, when Cendant Corp.—the conglomerate that owned Avis, Century 21, and Days Inn—bought Jackson Hewitt for $483 million, his earliest backers received a $2 million payout on every $5,000 they'd invested. Today, with 6,000 offices scattered across the country, Jackson Hewitt is more ubiquitous than KFC, and has about as many imitators.

THERE WOULD BE NO refund anticipation loans, of course, without tax refunds. And by extension there would be no RALs without the Earned Income Tax Credit, the federal anti-poverty initiative that served as the mother's milk nourishing the instant-refund boom. Welfare reform was the catalyst for the EITC, which was aimed at putting extra cash in the pockets of low-income parents who worked. What motive does a single mother have to get a job, conservative thinkers asked, if there was scant difference between her monthly take-home pay and a welfare check? It was Richard Nixon who first floated the idea that led to the Earned Income Tax Credit; Ronald Reagan dubbed it "the best pro-family, the best job creation measure to come out of Congress." In 2007, the US Treasury paid out $49 billion to 25 million taxpayers.

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ABC News Exclusive: Pat Tillman's Mom Wants General Stanley ...

ABC News' Jake Tapper reports: President Obama named retired General Stanley McChrystal to co-chair a White House commission on military families this week, but according to perhaps the most prominent military family of the last decade, ...

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Google News Blog: New Google News for Opera Mini

While the Google News team has been hard at work redesigning our service for smartphones, we've also been thinking about our milllions of users around the world who access the web not from a smartphone, but from a feature phone, ...

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

personal finance blog

Blogger Andrew Trench recently presented a theory on the threshold of when Internet penetration starts to matter, writing:

Social networks have also been given plenty of credit for the revolution unfolding in Egypt.

So I went and had a look at the numbers over on www.internetworldstats.com to see what they could tell us about these two scenarios. Well, fascinatingly, both Egypt and Tunisia have seen a massive growth in internet users and internet penetration over the last 10 years.

Both have now got internet penetration of over 20% and in Tunisia's case it was as high as 34%.

While it is clearly simplistic to over-state this factor and there must be many more drivers contributing to such a rapid political uprising, it is obviously a factor as evidenced by the Egyptian regime pulling the plug on the country's internet access to try and block the rising tide of revolt.

My back-of-napkin theory is this: that a rapid increase in internet penetration in a repressive regime does play an important role as it provides an unfettered channel of communication allowing disaffected citizens to share views - and more importantly - to rapidly organise and mobilise.

If Egypt and Tunisia are valid case studies, it looks like internet penetration of around 20% is the mark.

Geopolitics & Macroeconomics adds:

Internet penetration: Social networking sites were critical to sustaining the momentum in the recent protests. The internet penetration in Egypt is 16%. In Libya, it is a meagre 5% [1]. The unrest in Libya has thus far remained concentrated in regions that are geographically distant from the seat of ‘real' power (see more on this below). The dependence of momentum on internet communication is far greater in Libya than in Egypt where protests began in Cairo itself.

Taking the conversation to Pakistan, Sabene Saigol writes, on BrandRepublic:

Perhaps one reason for this is that we're still not that used to communicating via the ‘net - maybe we need greater broadband and internet penetration. Personally I think it is more to do with culture - while Pakistani internet users are savvy to using social media to connect with friends, I feel they have not yet ‘crossed over' to seeing SM as a means for professional communications - or even wider social communications that go beyond their immediate circle. Yes, there are no doubt savvy people - both within marketing and tech circles, and outside - however, these people are likely a tiny proportion of the total number of ‘net and social media users.

If you don't know much about Justin Bieber's rise to superstardom, James Parker provides a good primer:

How did he do it? With YouTube, that’s how. Kissed in his cradle by the witch of the Web, Justin was throwing up little promo reels by the time he was 12. Singing a Brian McKnight song into the bathroom mirror. Or sitting on some municipal steps somewhere, busking mightily about the Lord: “You’re my God and my Fa-ther!” he bellows through the legs of passersby, the wooden body of his guitar reverberating with his shouts. ...

Bieber wasn’t from the Disney factory, and he didn’t have a show on Nickelodeon, so the marketing plan was skewed toward his already established constituency in social media: lots of Facebooking and YouTubing and sugary tweets to his millions-strong Twitter army.

Surface Encounters

MLB creates new seven-day DL for concussions

Major League Baseball and its players union have announced a new set of protocols for dealing with concussions, including the creation of a new seven-day disabled list for players with the injury.

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Small Business News: Social Media Brand

What is your social media brand? Do you have one? Sure, many small business owners and entreprene...

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Take Two: Donald Trump Releases Official Birth Certificate - The Note

Donald Trump learned the hard way this week that if you're going to call on the president to release his official birth certificate, you'd better do the same. The Note, authored by ABC News' Amy Walter and Michael Falcone, ...

Surface Encounters

Dirty Percent

Tuesday, 1 March 2011

It’s not hard to make the case that Apple’s new in-app subscription system offers numerous benefits to users, developers, and publishers. But whatever those benefits, they stem from the mere existence of these new subscription APIs. What’s controversial is the size of Apple’s cut: 30 percent.

No one is arguing that Apple shouldn’t get some cut of in-app purchases that go through iTunes. And, if Apple were taking a substantially smaller cut, there would be substantially fewer people objecting to Apple’s rules (that subscription-based publishing apps must use the system; that they can’t link to their external sign-up web page from within the app; and that they must offer in-app subscribers the same prices available outside the app).

The reasonable arguments against Apple’s policies seem to be:

Apple should be taking less, perhaps far less, than 30 percent.

Apple should not require subscription-based apps to use the in-app subscription APIs. If it’s a good deal for publishers, they’ll choose to use the system on their own.

Apple should not require price-matching from subscription offers outside the app. Publishers should be allowed to charge iOS users more money to cover Apple’s cut.

Apple should consider business models that simply can’t afford a 70/30 revenue split.

Let’s consider these in reverse order.

Apple Should Consider Business Models That Can’t Afford a 70/30 Revenue Split

Apple doesn’t give a damn about companies with business models that can’t afford a 70/30 split. Apple’s running a competitive business; competition is cold and hard. And who exactly can’t afford a 70/30 split? Middlemen. It’s not that Apple is opposed to middlemen — it’s that Apple wants to be the middleman. It’s difficult to expect them to be sympathetic to the plights of other middlemen.

Some of these apps and services that are left out might be ones that iOS users enjoy, though. This is the leading argument for how this new policy will in fact hurt users, and, as a result, Apple itself: it’ll drive good apps off the platform. Frequently mentioned examples: Netflix and Kindle. For all we know, though, Netflix may well be fine with this policy. Apple would only get a 30 percent cut of new subscriptions that go through the Netflix iOS app, and that might be a bounty Netflix can live with in exchange for more subscribers. Keep in mind, too, that Netflix and Apple seemingly get along well enough that Netflix is built into the Apple TV system software.

Kindle, and e-book platforms in general, are a different case. For one thing, Kindle doesn’t use subscriptions. Kindle offers purchases. Presumably, given Apple’s rejection of Sony’s e-book platform app last month, Apple is going to insist on the same rules for in-app purchases through apps like Kindle as they do for in-app subscriptions. If so, something’s got to give. The “agency model” through which e-books are sold requires the bookseller to give the publisher 70 percent of the sale price. So if the publisher gets 70 and Apple gets 30, that leaves a big fat nothing for Amazon, or Barnes & Noble, or Kobo, or anyone else selling books through native iOS apps — other than iBooks, of course.

But leaving aside the revenue split, there are technical limitations as well. The existing in-app purchasing system in iOS has a technical limit of 3,500 catalog items. I.e. any single app can offer no more than 3,500 items for in-app purchase. Amazon has hundreds of thousands of Kindle titles.

Something’s got to give here. I don’t know what, but there must be more news on this front coming soon. I don’t believe Apple wants to chase competing e-book platforms off the App Store.

Apple Should Not Require Price Matching

Why not allow developers and publishers to set their own prices for in-app subscriptions? One reason: Apple wants its customers to get the best price — and, to know that they’re getting the best price whenever they buy a subscription through an app. It’s a confidence in the brand thing: with Apple’s rules, users know they’re getting the best price, they know they’ll be able to unsubscribe easily, and they know their privacy is protected.

Credit card companies insist on similar rules: retailers pay a processing fee for every credit card transaction, but the credit card companies insist that these fees not be passed on to the customer. Customers pay the same price as they would if they used cash — which encourages them to use their credit card liberally. (Going further, many charge cards offer cash back on each purchase — they can do this because the cash-back percentage refunded to the customer is less than the transaction processing fee paid by the retailer.)

So the same-price rule is good for the user, and good for Apple. But Matt Drance argues that Apple could dissipate much of this subscription controversy by waiving this rule:

The requirement that IAP content be offered “at the same price
or less than it is offered outside the app,” combined with the
70/30 split, means developers must make less money off of iOS by
definition. They can’t price their IAP content higher to offset
the commission, nor can they price their own retail content lower.

If I am interpreting this correctly, I can’t bring myself to see
it as reasonable. […] I think a great deal of this drama could
go away if Apple dropped section 11.13 while keeping section
11.14: Your prices on your store are your business; just don’t
be a jerk and advertise the difference all over ours.

And I agree with him. Yes, the same-price rule is good for users and for Apple, but waiving this rule wouldn’t be particularly bad for users or for Apple, either — and it would give publishers some freedom to experiment.

I suspect one reason Apple won’t budge is that their competitors — like Amazon — insist on best-price matching.

Apple Should Not Require Apps to Offer In-App Subscriptions

I’m sympathetic to this argument, too. “If you don’t like our terms, don’t use our subscription system.” But it has occurred to me that this entire in-app subscription debate mirrors the debate surrounding the App Store itself back in 2008 — that 30 percent was too large a cut for Apple to take, that it shouldn’t be mandatory, etc. The same way many developers wanted (and still want) a way to sell native iOS apps on their own, outside the App Store, many publishers now want a way to sell subscriptions on their own, outside the App Store.

The fact is, the App Store is an all-or-nothing affair. You play by Apple’s rules or you stick to web apps through Mobile Safari. This alternative is no different for periodical publishers than it was (and remains) for app developers in general. A lot of these demands boil down to a desire for more autonomy for native iOS app developers. Apple has never shown any interest in that.

There’s one striking difference between the subscription controversy today and the App Store controversy in 2008: with subscriptions, Apple is taking away the ability to do something that they previously allowed. There was never a supported way to install native apps for iOS before the App Store. Subscriptions sold outside the App Store, on the other hand, were allowed until last month.

Apple Should Be Taking Less, Possibly Far Less, Than 30 Percent

Another difference between the App Store itself and in-app subscriptions is that with apps, Apple hosts and serves the downloads. Apple covers the bandwidth, even for gargantuan gigabyte-or-larger 99-cent games. The OS handles installation.

With in-app subscriptions (and purchases), however, the app developer is responsible for hosting the content, and for writing the code to download, store, and manage it. So — one reasonable argument goes — given that Apple is doing less for subscription content than it does for apps (or for music and movies purchased through iTunes), Apple should take less of the money.

Taken further, the argument boils down to this: that for in-app subscriptions and purchases, Apple is serving only as a payment processer — and thus, a reasonable fee for transactions would be in the small single digits — 3, 4, maybe 5 percent, say. More or less something along the lines of what PayPal charges.

Apple, I think it’s clear, doesn’t see it this way. Apple sees the entire App Store, along with all native iOS apps, as an upscale, premium software store: owned, controlled, and managed like a physical shopping mall. Brick and mortar retailers don’t settle for a single-digit cut of retail prices; neither does the App Store.

Seth Godin argues that Apple’s 30 percent cut is too big to allow publishers to profit:

Except Apple has announced that they want to tax each subscription
made via the iPad at 30%. Yes, it’s a tax, because what it does is
dramatically decrease the incremental revenue from each
subscriber. An intelligent publisher only has two choices: raise
the price (punishing the reader and further cutting down
readership) or make it free and hope for mass (see my point above
about the infinite newsstand). When you make it free, it’s all
about the ads, and if you don’t reach tens or hundreds of
thousands of subscribers, you’ll fail.

Godin’s logic strikes me as questionable. For one thing, he freely switches between a newsstand metaphor (arguing, perhaps accurately, that the App Store is too large for publishers to gain attention from potential readers in the first place — you won’t read what you never notice) and the economics of subscriptions. But subscribers are the opposite of newsstand readers. Newsstand readers are buying a single copy, often on impulse. Subscribers are readers who are already hooked, and who know what they want. Put another way, the size of Apple’s cut of subscription revenue — whether it were higher or lower — has no bearing on the “attention at the newsstand” problem.

Second, the problem facing traditional publishers today is that circulation is falling. Newsstand sales and subscriptions are falling, under pressure from free-of-charge websites and other forms of digital content. The idea with Apple’s 70-30 revenue split is that developers and publishers can make it up in volume — that people aren’t just somewhat more willing to pay for content through iTunes than other online content stores, they are far more willing. The idea is that Apple has cracked a nut no one else1 has — they’ve created an ecosystem where hundreds of millions of people are willing to pay for digital content. Thus, potentially, publishers won’t just make more money keeping only 70 percent of subscription fees generated through iOS apps than they are now with 96 percent (or whatever they’re left with after payment processing fees) of subscription fees they’re selling on their own — they stand to make a lot more money.

I’m not guaranteeing or even predicting that it’s going to work out that way. I’m just saying that’s Apple’s proposition.

Godin’s assumption is that iOS in-app subscriptions won’t significantly increase the number of subscribers. If he’s right about that, then he’s right that Apple’s 30 percent cut will prove too expensive for publishers. But Apple’s bet is that in-app subscriptions can dramatically increase the number of subscribers. Consider the app landscape. Apple’s 30 percent cut didn’t drive the price of paid apps up — the nature of the App Store drove prices down. It’s a volume game.

The App Store itself proves that Apple might be right. Like with app sales, in-app subscriptions won’t work for every publication. But it could work for many. It really is possible to make it up in volume.

And if a 70-30 split for in-app subscription revenue doesn’t work, the price will come down. That’s how capitalism works. You choose a price and see how it goes. I’ll admit — when the App Store launched in 2008, I thought Apple’s 70-30 split was skewed too heavily in Apple’s favor. Not that it was wrong in any moral sense, but that it was wrong in a purely economic sense: that it might be more than developers would be willing to bear. Apple, clearly, has a better sense about what prices the market will bear than I (and, likely, you) do.

Competition vs. Anti-Competition

One last argument I’ve seen regarding these in-app subscription rules is that it’s further evidence of anti-competitive behavior from Apple. That makes sense only if you consider iOS to be the entire field of play. Apple, though, is competing at a higher level. They’re competing between platforms: iOS vs. Kindle/Amazon vs. Android/Google vs. Microsoft, and in some ways, vs. the free web. Why should publishers make an app rather than just a mobile web site? For happier customers and more money.

Sony has a platform for e-books. Amazon has a platform for e-books. Barnes & Noble has a platform for e-books. Apple has a platform for e-books. But Apple is the only one which allows its competitors to have apps on its devices. And Apple is the anti-competitive one? I’m no lawyer, but if the iTunes Music store hasn’t yet been deemed a monopoly with Apple selling 70+ percent of digital music players, then I doubt the App Store will be deemed a monopoly for a market where Apple has never been — and, according to market share trends, may never be — the top-selling smartphone maker, let alone own a majority of the market, let alone own more than a single-digit sliver of the phone market as a whole. As for ruthless profiteering, consider that Amazon, with their e-book publishing, originally took the fat end of a 70-30 revenue split with authors.

One question I’ve been asked by several DF readers who object to Apple’s new in-app subscription and purchasing policies goes like this: What if Microsoft did this with Windows, and, say, tried to require Apple to pay them 30 percent for every purchase made through iTunes on Windows? To that, I say: good luck with that. Microsoft couldn’t make such a change by fiat. The whole premise of Windows (and other personal computer systems) is that it is open to third-party software. Apple couldn’t just flip a switch and make Mac OS X a controlled app console system like iOS — they had to introduce the Mac App Store as an alternative to traditional software installation. If Microsoft introduced something similar to the Mac App Store for Windows, Apple would simply eschew it. If Microsoft were to mandate an iOS App Store-like total control policy for all Windows software, they’d have a revolt in their user base that would make Vista look like a success.

iOS isn’t and never was an open computer system. It’s a closed, controlled console system — more akin to Playstation or Wii or Xbox than to Mac OS X or Windows. It is, in Apple’s view, a privilege to have a native iOS app.

This is what galls some: Apple is doing this because they can, and no other company is in a position to do it. This is not a fear that in-app subscriptions will fail because Apple’s 30 percent slice is too high, but rather that in-app subscriptions will succeed despite Apple’s (in their minds) egregious profiteering. I.e. that charging what the market will bear is somehow unscrupulous. To the charge that Apple Inc. is a for-profit corporation run by staunch capitalists, I say, “Duh”.

If it works, Apple’s 30-percent take of in-app subscriptions will prove as objectionable in the long run as the App Store itself: not very.

In February of 2007, 83.24 percent of users visiting TechCrunch did so from a Windows machine. One year later, in February 2008, the stranglehold remained firm at 80.44 percent. In February 2009, the number was at 74.04 percent. Last year, it was 61.59 percent. And this year? The number of people visiting our site from Windows machines dipped to 53.84 percent.

The writing is on the wall.

Look at those numbers again for a second. In four years, Windows share among TechCrunch readers has fallen 30 percentage points. That’s incredible.

The knee-jerk reaction in the comment section will likely be something like “it’s because you guys cover Apple so much”. But the fact of the matter is that Macintosh share, after rising for three of those four years, fell last year as well. It’s the mobile devices — specifically the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices — that are eating away at Windows.

In fact, if the trend over the past four years continues at about the same pace, in two years, devices made by Apple (Macs, iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads) will surpass devices that run Windows as the top visitors to TechCrunch. And depending on how popular the iPad 2, iPhone 5, and OS X Lion are, it could easily happen next year.

Here are the broken down numbers:

Feb 2007

Windows: 83.24%

Mac: 13.59%

Linux: 2.51%

Feb 2008

Windows: 80.44%

Mac: 15.15%

Linux: 2.97%

iPhone: 0.77%

iPod: 0.15%

Feb 2009

Windows: 74.04%

Mac: 20.48%

Linux: 3.01%

iPhone: 1.60%

iPod: 0.28%

Android: 0.09%

Feb 2010

Windows: 61.59%

Mac: 28.62%

iPhone: 4.07%

Linux: 3.49%

Android: 0.87%

iPod: 0.53%

Feb 2011

Windows: 53.84%

Mac: 27.64%

iPhone: 6.72%

iPad: 3.44%

Linux: 3.28%

Android: 3.06%

iPod: 0.62%

While even the last batch of stats shows that Windows still has a nice cushion over number two, Mac, if you add the Apple products put together, it’s a different story.

Feb 2007: 13.59% Apple products

Feb 2008: 16.07% Apple products

Feb 2009: 22.36% Apple products

Feb 2010: 33.22% Apple products

Feb 2011: 38.42% Apple products

In the four year span, Apple has added 25 percentage points to their share among TechCrunch readers. That nearly all of the 30 percentage points that Windows lost in that same span (Android’s growth pretty much fills in the rest).

So it currently stands at Microsoft’s 53.84 percent versus Apple’s 38.42 percent. Again, a big year for iPad, iPhone, and Mac could mean a changing of the guard as soon as next year. But unless something drastic changes, you can be sure that Apple will be dominant among TechCrunch readers in two years.

The latest rumors have Windows 8 showing up sometime in mid/late 2012. But the fact of the matter is that Windows 7, much more widely praised than the disaster that was Vista, hasn’t helped Microsoft buck this trend among our readers. Perhaps they’re only hope of gaining back share at this point is Windows Phone. So far, that hasn’t been going too well. Nokia should help that, but will it be enough to offset the Windows losses?

Humorously, Microsoft’s best hope for not falling to Apple may well be Android. If Google’s platform continues to make gains, it could prolong Apple passing Microsoft.

But again, Apple has iPhone 5, iPad 2, and OS X Lion on the immediate horizon — all within the next few months. And then there’s the very real possibility of another iPad in the fall.

The iPad 2 and iPhone 5 are likely to push the Apple share forward immediately. But don’t sleep on OS X Lion either. The early indications are that Apple has indeed made it much more iOS-like. That means millions of iPad/iPhone/iPod touch owners who have traditionally been PC users, are going to feel a lot more comfortable on a Mac than ever before.

And a new PC-to-Mac data migration system built in to Lion will only help that.

OS X Lion is going to feed off of iOS users, and vice versa. And the Mac ecosystem is going to continue to expand. Just as happened in the browser world with Chrome taking over, a transition is happening among TechCrunch readers in the ecosystem space. The numbers don’t lie. And Microsoft better pray that our readers aren’t leading indicators of overall trends in the space — which is exactly what you have been in the past.

Surface Encounters

Surface Encounters

NYTimes.com's Plan To Charge People Money For Consuming Goods, Services Called Bold Business Move | The Onion - America's Finest News Source
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Recognizing Women's History Month, New Deal 2.0 tells the surprising story of how women became citizens -- and how their economic lives have evolved along with their rights. Allida Black urges action on UN Resolution 1325, which ensures equal citizenship for women across the globe.

The monumental elections of Presidents Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Liberia), Roza Otunbayeva (Krygyzstan), Dilma Rousseff (Brazil), and Prime Minister Julia Gillard (Australia) and the game-changing appointments of Dr. Michelle Bachelet as Under-Secretary General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNWomen and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State proved that women can govern, run preeminent human rights organizations, set international policy, and place women at the center of diplomacy, development, and peace.

But the question remains -- if women can be president, why can't they be citizens? Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and in rights." Yet it took another twenty years after its signing to get the international conventions on political and civil rights and on economic, social and cultural rights -- and, in the United States, another twenty plus years for Congress to adopt legislation ensuring women's political and economic rights. It took another thirteen years for the United Nations to ratify (without the support of the United States) the Convention to End All Forms of Discrimination against Women. And in 2011, the US House of Representatives and other foreign governing bodies still toy with legislation essential to women's identities, ranging from limiting access to reproductive health services and marriage to crafting sentencing guidelines that treat girls and women as felons and charges those that have abducted and abused them with misdemeanors.

In a 1946 column, written before she joined the UN Commission on Human Rights, Eleanor Roosevelt urged women to "call on the Governments of the world to encourage women everywhere to take a more conscious part in national and international affairs, and on women to come forward and share in the work of peace and reconstruction as they did in the war and resistance." More than fifty years later, at the dawn of a new century, the UN Security Council -- pressured by a well-organized international women's lobby, Hillary Clinton, and other stateswomen and embarrassed by the rampant use of rape and genital dismemberment as tools of war -- adopted Resolution 1325. It urged "Member States to ensure increased representation of women at all decision-making levels in national, regional and international institutions and mechanisms for the prevention, management, and resolution of conflict."

Now ten years later, the campaign -- indeed the struggle -- to enforce this resolution rages across the United States as much as it does across Egypt or the Congo or Afghanistan.

It is tempting to construct this resolution narrowly -- to see it as a tool of armistice rather than reconstruction, as a vehicle to protect women rather than empower them. To do so, to paraphrase Albus Dumbledore, would be to do what is easy rather than what is right.

UN1325 is on the front line in the campaign for women's citizenship. It is a battle to ensure that economic, social and cultural rights cannot be divorced from, or considered separately from, political and civil rights. It is the struggle to reclaim democracy promotion away from post-Cold War politics, self-interested development and the campaign against terror and place it at the heart of citizen participation.

Just as important, it is a campaign to ensure women's rights as citizens as much as it is a campaign to force governments to act responsibly to all its citizens. While equality and human dignity have no sex, policy designed without taking stock of gender differences often perpetuates discrimination.

As Eleanor Roosevelt would say, both citizens and governments must "recognize that the goal of full participation in the life and responsibilities of their countries and of the world community is a common objective" and one "which the women of the world should assist one another" in achieving.

This post originally appeared on New Deal 2.0.

Surface Encounters

Jon Stewart Calls Out NBC News For Not Reporting on GE's $0 Tax ...

On Friday, The New York Times reported that General Electric paid no U.S. federal income tax in 2010, despite earning $14.2 billion in profits. While.

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foreclosure homes

We pointed last week to an analysis by Lynn Syzmoniak that showed that foreclosures across a number of different servicers were way down in January 2011 versus the same period in January 2010. This was admittedly a tally in only two Florida counties, but she indicated that a quick look at other counties in Florida showed a similar pattern.

So the question then becomes: is this a Florida only development, due perhaps in part the fact that all the big foreclosure mills in the state are under investigation by the state AG and are imploding (as in losing clients and shedding staff)? Or is this a broader trend due to the robo signing scandal leading judges being more receptive to arguments about chain of title and validity of transfers? Before, the assumption was “bank right, borrower trying to abuse the law to stay in house”. Now more judges, seeing that banks have run roughshod over legal requirements, are prepared to give borrower arguments a hearing. That forces banks to up their game, which in turn may be the real driver for this apparent slowdown in foreclosure actions. If that was the main driver in Florida, we’d expect to see similar patterns in other states.

We are seeing analogous developments, but the drivers appear to be state specific, as judges give adverse rulings on common practices in foreclosure land. Reader wc4d pointed to a report in the Portland Oregonian, that lenders are withdrawing cases because five court decisions have found that lenders that used MERS violated state recording laws.

This is a vivid illustration of a point made in an article on MERS yesterday by Gretchen Morgenson:

MERS was flawed at conception, those critics say. The bankers who midwifed its birth hired Covington & Burling, a prominent Washington law firm, to research their proposal. Covington produced a memo that offered assurances that MERS could operate legally nationwide. No one, however, conducted a state-by-state study of real estate laws.

“They didn’t do the deep homework,” said an official involved in those discussions who spoke on condition of anonymity because he has clients involved with MERS. “So as far as anyone can tell their real theory was: ‘If we can get everyone on board, no judge will want to upend something that is reasonable and sensible and would screw up 70 percent of loans.’ ”

As we’ve also noted, recording clerks in single counties in Massachusetts and North Carolina are looking into how to recover recording fees from MERS, but the cost of litigation means they’d need other counties in the same states to join or the state attorney general to take up the matter. By contrast, the Oregon decisions don’t hit small fry MERS; they are a big problem for the banks themselves. As the Oregonian reports:

Sales of hundreds of foreclosed homes in Oregon have been halted or withdrawn in recent weeks after federal judges repeatedly questioned their legality, according to a number of real estate attorneys in the state.

Lenders have withdrawn more than 300 foreclosure sales since February in Deschutes County alone, one of the Oregon area’s hardest hit by the housing collapse. About 130 of those notices were filed in the past week, attorneys say.

Dozens of foreclosure listings by ReconTrust Co., the foreclosure arm of Bank of America Corp., have disappeared from its website, attorneys say…

Since October, federal judges in five separate Oregon cases have halted foreclosures involving MERS, saying its participation caused lenders to violate the state’s recording law. Three of those decisions came last month, the key one in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Eugene.

Attorneys say it’s not clear whether lenders in Oregon will simply start over or head to court to foreclose, steps that could prolong the crisis for months and drive up costs, attorneys say. Some suggest lenders might not have access to the documents they need to comply with state law.

“A lot of us are questioning whether there is a solution,” said David Ambrose, a Portland attorney who represents lenders in mortgage transactions. “It’s pretty amazing. There are a lot of unanswered questions.” ….

In Oregon, lenders can foreclose without going to court. But state law also requires that the loan’s ownership history, or assignments, be recorded with local county governments before proceeding with a nonjudicial foreclosure.

In the Eugene court case, Donald E. McCoy III filed for bankruptcy protection in part to block U.S. Bank from foreclosing on his Central Point home. He then sued the bank and MERS, along with his original lender BNC Mortgage Inc., claiming they had not properly recorded BNC’s subsequent sale of the loan to investors.

Chief Bankruptcy Judge Frank R. Alley III found McCoy’s allegation persuasive and refused to grant the bank’s request for a dismissal.

“Oregon law permits foreclosure without the benefit of judicial proceeding only when the interest of the beneficiary (lender) is clearly documented in a public record,” Alley wrote. “When the public record is lacking, the foreclosing beneficiary must prove its interest in a judicial proceeding.”

This looks like an epic fail for the banks, at least in Oregon. To save maybe $50 on recording fees, they are now going to have to go to court to foreclose. And worse for them will be cases where the records don’t pass muster. Recall that servicers advance principal and interest to investors when borrowers become delinquent. They then reimburse themselves out of the foreclosure proceeds. No foreclosure and they are out a lot of dough.

As Morgenson’s source indicated, the banks brazenly assumed that the courts would simply roll over rather than block the extra-legal imposition of a new system. But there is enough of a semblance of rule of law in the US to undermine all the cost savings and corners-cutting they engaged in. Recall this recent New York decision:

This court does not accept the argument that because MERS may be involved with 50 percent of all residential mortgages in the country, that is reason enough for this court to turn a blind eye to the fact that this process does not comply with the law.

The courts are delivering the banks an unrelenting series of deserved unkind cuts. This is getting to be interesting, and for a change, in a good way.

Disclaimer:
This is a personal web site. It is not a production of Media Matters for America (MMFA). Statements on this site do not represent the views or policies of MMFA. Preferences for electoral candidates posted on this site have not been expressed using any MMFA resources.

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How To Install Managing News On Ubuntu | HowtoForge - Linux Howtos ...

How To Install Managing News On Ubuntu. Managing News is an RSS/Atom based news tracker with search, republishing and mapping. This tutorial shows how to install Managing News on an Ubuntu server. ...

How to create a Facebook news feed for a journalist (or anything ...

I've been enjoying The Independent's individual Facebook feeds for journalists, football teams and other 'entities' of their news coverage. So much so that.

Iranian Video Says Mahdi is 'Near' - World - CBN News - Christian ...

New evidence has emerged that the Iranian government sees the current unrest in the Middle East as a signal that the Mahdi--or Islamic messiah--is about to appear.

Monday, March 28, 2011

SEO Services Vancouver For any Better Marketing Solution

When you begin your own website there are lots of ways you will have to sell it off and one of the best ways is by using SEO services Vancouver if you be in that area. The SEO or search engine optimization services will be the top way of getting more visitors to your website and therefore making more sales.

Now, you need to know that you won't use SEO service if you're not an internet business - however, if you don't come with an online presence if you are a offline business, then you will not make it very far.

It is a well known proven fact that if you are going to make it within the offline world you need to have an online business. This really is something that all people are learning the hard way. Something that you should also know is that it is not as simple as just setting up the website and leaving it to do its things.

You can do this in most sorts of ways, but these companies usually make use of multiple methods to create the perfect marketing technique online. It is possible to hire them to write articles for you personally, post on forums and blogs, create meta data and meta descriptions, clean up the code, add alt tags to the images plus much more.

It is crucial that you simply do this because otherwise the organization that you have worked so hard for could end up losing all the money. If you have an internet site you want to produce, then you will also use the services of a search engine optimization company, which stands for search engine optimization company. What this company does is actually go ahead and take best parts of your website, check the code, create keywords and write various articles and documents to ensure your site is placed near the top of the list for that major search engines like google.

As a result the Search engine optimization company cannot only improve your traffic, but also make sure that your website is fully optimized for that search engine spiders that will be brought to it. These spiders are used to analyze your website and put it in a few positions determined on certain keywords.

If you want to use the SEO services Vancouver then all you have to do is discover the top companies. It's through these how the SEO gets done effectively and efficiently. Because of so many SEO companies to select from you need to be sure that the one you're going for is reliable. You should be able to ask for a failure of what you want, and also the company should also be able to let you know know long they have been operating for. This will limit the list to reveal the very best ones.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Making Money on Line

James Franco Told Frida Giannini He’s Making A Gucci Film

by Julia Rubin | 5:25 pm, February 19th, 2011

The March issue of Harper’s Bazaar just won’t quit…and it hasn’t even hit newsstands yet. In addition to pieces on Kim and Liz, Prabal and DVF, Daphne and Hillary, the magazine also features an interview James Franco conducted with his friend Frida Giannini.

The Gucci creative director dished on all sorts of things with the actor/director/soap star/student/overachiever who had this to say about the designer: ”Frida and I have been in sync since we met. I love her work, and she supports mine. Creatively, I know we will always be in line with each other.” (Also, Franco joked that his next project is “making a documentary about you and Gucci.” But we just don’t know if he’s kidding.)

On Gucci’s pragmatism:

JF: When you see the clothes at a fashion show, sometimes they’re more extreme than what you see in the store, right?

FG: Well, not always at Gucci. I believe what we are showing on the catwalk needs to be in the stores. The big stores like in New York or London or Paris, the main flagships, they always have the entire collection–even the extreme pieces. There are people who are waiting for the extreme pieces from the fashion show. We are not the kind of company that thinks, Okay, I’ll do something for the runway, and I’ll make an entire new collection to sell.

FG: Chanel is always doing incredible sets, and they change it every time. We’d rather spend money on other things than make a big, spectacular thing you would see for 10 minutes because we are working for six months on a collection.

On fashion globalism:

JF: So then, because Gucci is all over the world and you’re thinking about people actually wearing these clothes, do you have to think slightly differently for each part of the world?

FG: I never think about it because I think people in the world, from the U.S. to Asia, love Gucci because it’s about aspiration. I don’t think if I made a speciic collection for a Chinese woman, she would be happy. They don’t want something speciic for them. I did a collection that was very Russian, inspired by the artists in Russia in the ’20s and ’30s who left and went to Paris. It performed very well all over the world–except in Russia.

JF: And why, do you think?

FG: I talked to the managers in Russia, and they said they didn’t like the reference to them. So this is an example that was quite strange. Maybe if I make a collection inspired by India, with the colors of India, people in India won’t like it.

On criticism:

JF: I know Harper’s Bazaar is here listening to us, but if you’re criticized heavily in a big fashion magazine, does that have any real effect on sales or what people like?

FG: The first couple of seasons, I was in shock sometimes because I had very mixed reviews, especially because it was right after Tom Ford. Can you imagine the pressure? I am a woman; he is a man. I am Italian; he is American. Very, very different. Now I am much more relaxed; sometimes I receive very bad criticism and read between the lines of the bad reviews.

Sometimes I have thought it was a good suggestion for me because I know that the journalist has a great mind and has much more experience than me. Generally speaking, I’m very open to criticism. I will never say, “I had a bad review from you; I don’t want to meet you anymore.” I believe in what I am doing, and I believe in my ideas, but I think it is very constructive to be open to understanding other thoughts.

[Harper's Bazaar]

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“A coalition of progressive Christian leaders has taken out a full-page ad that asks ‘What would Jesus cut?’ in Monday’s edition of Politico, the opening salvo in what the leaders say will be a broader campaign to prevent cuts for the poor and international aid programs amid the budget battle raging in Washington.

“‘They’re talking about cutting bed nets for malaria and leaving every piece of military spending untouched,’ said the Rev. Jim Wallis, who leads the Christian group Sojourners, referring to Republican spending proposals for the rest of this year.

“‘Are we saying that every piece of military equipment is more important than bed nets, children’s health and nutrition for low-income families?’ said Wallis, whose group paid for Monday’s ad. ‘If so they should be ashamed of themselves.’”

***

“There is no doubt we must get our fiscal house in order. It’s not optional. But the fact is that the money spent on U.S. anti-poverty programs makes a great deal more difference to low-income families than it would to reducing the deficit. The amounts add up to a drop in a sea of red budget ink. But for millions of low-income Americans, they mean the difference between running out of food before the end of the month, and eating well enough to do one’s best at school or work…

“When Jesus talked about how God will judge nations, he said God will focus on what we did or did not do for the neediest among us. Taking care of ‘the least of these’ should be among our nation’s top priorities. It should not be among the first of our responsibilities in line for cuts.

“I urge Congress not to attempt to balance the budget at the expense of vulnerable people. It won’t solve the problem, and it’s not what Jesus would do.”

***

“Even though the 533 billion dollar military budget is the elephant in the room and the gushing, bleeding wound of America’s deficit … it has been the sacred cow. But folks are beginning to whisper. I’m not sure about sacred cows making good hamburgers, but I do know that military money could make some good schools. And the Bible I read gives a powerful image of beating ‘swords into plowshares’ — taking things that have brought death and converting them into things that bring life. It seems the world may be poised and ready for that kind of conversion.

“So it’s not a bad moral gauge — What Would Jesus Do? Who Would Jesus Bomb? What Would Jesus Cut? The Jesus who loved the poor, challenged the rich, made friends with enemies, and healed the sick. So let’s ask it – WWJC? And let’s hope the politicians who claim to follow the Christ who carried good news for the poor will ask this little question as the debate goes on.”

***

“What these ‘progressive’ Christian leaders are doing is committing the same error that some on the so-called Religious Right did, which is to pretend that Scripture can be reduced to a governing blueprint. (In this instance, we’re asked to imagine Jesus as a liberal, big-spending director of the Office of Management and Budget.) The temptation of politically active people of faith is to simplistically connect dots, insisting that certain biblical principles self-evidently translate into particular public policies…

“The Christian ethicist Paul Ramsey wrote, ‘Identification of Christian social ethics with specific partisan proposals that clearly are not the only ones that may be characterized as Christian and as morally acceptable comes close to the original New Testament meaning of heresy.’

“That is what Wallis & Company are engaging in. To argue that their form of liberalism has the imprimatur of Jesus — and to argue the necessary corollary, which is that those who want to return spending levels to their pre-stimulus levels are being unfaithful to the commands of their Lord — is arrogant and harmful. It reduces faith to a political weapon. In their partisan zeal, these Christian leaders are discrediting the very faith they insist they are defending.”

***

“Yes, this debt is a mortal threat to our country. It is also a moral threat. It is immoral to bind our children to as leeching and destructive a force as debt. It is immoral to rob our children’s future and make them beholden to China. No society is worthy that treats its children so shabbily.”

BenchCraft, LLC announced that it should debut its Concert Sequence, a whole new line of recliners with an integrated sound method, at High Point Market on October 17-22, 2009. Concert Sequence recliners feature two built-in stereo speakers in addition to a subwoofer designed specially to produce a full assortment of sound. It's got tactile motors which may either vibrate with all the sound or be employed independently being a massage process, and separate controls that allow for person adjustments to be developed to your volume, bass/treble, and the tactile/massage function. The product, that will have a very beginning price stage of $699, will even involve a mini audio jack so users can connect to their a number of audio resources (i.e. iPods, MP3 gamers, cell phones, and many others.). To that conclude, Sinning noted that Berkline will even be introducing in decide upon motion
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Monday, March 14, 2011

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Of all the smartphone makers whose names are not Apple, HTC is the most impressive. An upstart company from Taiwan, it has done a great job of building iconic hardware using commodity platforms. It has developed branding and messaging that’s edgy, cool and fun.

More importantly, it was the first company to embrace the idea of developing a user experience layer in order to differentiate itself from the commodity OS-based hardware devices that would flood the market. So, it came up with HTC Sense. A lot of credit for this unique sensibility should go to Horace Luke, HTC’s chief innovation officer, who has been the lightening rod behind the company’s design philosophy.

Perhaps that’s why I’m amazed he allowed HTC to release the abominations that are being called HTC’s Facebook phones. These are essentially nothing but regular HTC devices with a dedicated button for Facebook, which provides:

one-touch access to your friends and family. With a simple touch of the Facebook button, your network is immediately privy to the song you’re listening to, the new restaurant you’re checking out or interesting website you’ve stumbled upon.

These aren’t really Facebook phones, which are a whole different beast, and will be game changers when they come to market. If you want to know what a real Facebook Phone will look like – let’s just say it won’t be anything like HTC ChaCha or HTC Salsa. Kevin Tofel pointed out, “aside from the dedicated hardware button, many of the Facebook integrations are already available in widgets or natively in Android.” As I wrote earlier, a real Facebook phone will be a phone that embeds Facebook services in the very core of the phone and uses a Facebook user experience layer.

What these phones seem to be is a marketing gimmick cooked up by the marketing department at HTC and not the innovators. I can guarantee you Apple would never pull a cheesy move like this. Remember the long-forgotten days when Motorola introduced an iTunes phone? Well, we saw how that worked out.

This move by HTC reminds me of the late-90s, when the Internet mania was in full swing. Many companies were jostling for pole position and ended up paying a lot of money to PC makers to place their Internet access software or browser software on the desktop. Others went so far as to bake these Internet software/services into their devices via dedicated buttons. PC makers made those moves by sacrificing the needs of their primary customers and letting the greed get the better of them.

This time around, the situation is entirely different. Hardware makers are leveraging hot Internet brands to differentiate themselves and sell their increasingly commoditized hardware. By building a Facebook button, HTC is essentially trying to anoint Facebook as the social network of choice.

What happens if Facebook becomes less popular and something else pops up? Will HTC make a phone dedicated to that service? Will we soon see a Twitter button, an Angry Birds button, and a Bing button? Or all of them? Will HTC soon be selling hundreds of different models, each with dedicated button? If yes, how will they bring them to market?

The sad part is, now that HTC has gone ahead and done this, it’s almost a certainty that others are going to copy them and start rolling out phones with dedicated buttons. It won’t be good for the overall smartphone market.

The idea of dedicated buttons goes against the very design philosophy behind smartphone platforms. I believe smartphones are blank canvases meant to be hyper-personalized by average Joes and Janes, who download the apps they want and make the device fit their life. I am sorry, HTC; I don’t want you or anyone else making a choice for me via dedicated buttons.

App of the Day: TuneUp

If you’re like me, then you have a music library that’s ungainly and a tad unorganized. For some odd reason, many of the tunes you’ve gathered over the years have missing tags or cover art. Until recently, I had a tough time trying to clean it all up. Then I discovered TuneUp, which works on both Macs and PCs. It’s like sending your expensive shirts for French laundry, except for music. It fixes everything. The free version has advertising, while the premium service costs $29.95, with a yearly renewal fee of $19.95.

What to Read on the Web

Data Center Knowledge: 2011 – Year of the SSD

Dan Ramsden: The long tail’s value to the vital few

Garr Reynolds: Before success comes the courage to fail

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Granite is primarily created up of quartz crystal, nonetheless it also features various amounts of other metals which include feldspar, mica, copper and iron. Some granite may perhaps contain bits of gold or silver. The quantity of every single metal is dependent on the area it arrives from. All granite is shaped into a very difficult stone by heat and strain. Rain adds other minerals because it is forming. It's attainable throughout the planet, in each country, and just about every region will produce a surface encounters unique selection of granite.

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The Columbus, Ohio Grand Opening of Surface Encounters features an artwork gallery showroom of Granite, Marble, Quartz and Engineered Stone counter tops. Retail outlet Supervisor, Scott Donnelly unlocked the doorways from the showroom at 4717 Roberts Road, just west from the I-270 Beltway. The Surface Encounters manufacturing plan employs precision, automated know-how during the fabrication with the customer's personalized counter major, these as: a laser measuring alignment that applications the diamond-tipped sculpturing blades. Surface Encounters' technique features computer-driven program that perpetuates the stone's all natural veins. Each Surface Encounter store has not less than one registered, interior designer to help you in developing the completed project you're shopping for. The craftsmanship continues with the

House owners are choosing to remodel instead than promote their households in today’s marketplace
Granite countertops have become a major option amid Wixom buyers for kitchen remodeling tasks. Kitchen remodeling is often the primary project tackled with families shelling out 3,000 hours or more annually within their kitchen. Granite countertops give an surroundings that enhances the excellent time invested with family and close friends. Granite countertops very last a lifetime and strengthen the quality of households.

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Surface Encounters Macomb retail store manager, Sal Dellacasa, says there are numerous causes people are selecting granite for their countertop demands. “Granite countertops add elegance and elegance to a kitchen. Granite is obtainable in a very number of vibrant hues and prosperous textures and its strength and sturdiness is unmatched by every other surface encounters purely natural stone or artificial countertop substance.”

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Founded in 2009 by Amanda Steinberg, DailyWorth is really a everyday e mail newsletter that includes specifics on monetary literacy and dollars management skewed in the direction of a female audience. DailyWorth’s topics collection from learn how to organize your finances to tax tricks to conserving recommendations. And DailyWorth has an impressive editorial employees to build information. MP Dunleavey, earlier a individual finance columnist together with the Ny Occasions and currently a contributor with Capital magazine, is main DailyWorth’s editorial team.

Even with unions’ very long hatred of Scott Walker, the new governor is shifting to deal with both equally the signs and symptoms in the illness along with the illness itself-the public-sector union scheme which has molested Wisconsin’s taxpayers and their youngsters by gaming the product. Unions like Wisconsin’s teachers’ union [WEAC] (which was Wisconsin’s biggest-spending lobby in 2009) were extraordinarily adept at repairing the program by way of paying millions to elect politicians who, in turn, reward the unions on the expense from the taxpayers.

the Wisconsin battle, when when compared to private-sector negotiations is about: one) the Scope of Bargaining, two) Union “Income” Safety [Right-to-Work vs. Compelled Dues], three) whether or not Wisconsin ought to be the unions’ dues collection agency [payroll deduction of dues], and 4) if public-sector unions need to be ‘recertified’ by holding elections any yr.

put the images over the internet to show our tasks staff at msnbc.com, and photographer Jim Seida stated, why really don't we just publish it as a slide show? I used to be skeptical in the beginning - would that crimp the writing? - but from the end I was advocating undertaking it this way once the photograph group was skeptical. I considered much more individuals would read thru it by doing this, and it will be really worth an experiment.”

commercial fishing boats based mostly in Crescent Town set to sea previous night time when the tsunami alert was to begin with broadcast. It's simpler to ride out large waves at sea than in the dock. Now many of people boats are operating lower on fuel, however they are unable to return to port even while the surges proceed, mentioned Chris Renner, operator of C. Renner Petroleum Co. in Crescent Town, which serves the fleet

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On Monday evening, I watched my initial, The Previous Word host Lawrence O’Donnell.
Whilst O’Donnell laudably attempted to concentrate the audience’s focus onand hopefully last, Charlie Sheen trainwreck interview, courtesy of the tragic undertow that threatens to pull Sheen below for high-quality, I was overtaken, not through the pulling on the thread, in addition to the voracious audience he serves. It did not make me depressing, it manufactured me angry.

With regards to celebrities, we are able to be a heartless nation, basking within their misfortunes like nude sunbathers at Schadenfreude Seaside. The impulse is understandable, to some degree. It could possibly be grating to listen to complaints from men and women who love privileges that many of us cannot even visualize. In case you can’t muster up some compassion for Charlie Sheen, who can make even more funds for a day’s get the job done than most of us will make in a decade’s time, I guess I can’t blame you.

Using the rapid pace of events on the internet and the specifics revolution sparked from the On-line, it is really simple for your solutions trade to consider it is exclusive: continually breaking new ground and executing issues that no person has ever achieved ahead of.

But you can find other types of small business that have by now undergone a number of the same radical shifts, and also have just as terrific a stake within the long run.

Take healthcare, for example.

We often feel of it as a huge, lumbering beast, but in fact, medication has undergone a series of revolutions inside the past 200 a long time which have been not less than equal to individuals we see in technological know-how and information.

Less understandable, but nevertheless in the norms of human nature, may be the impulse to rubberneck, to slow down and consider the carnage of Charlie spectacle of Sheen’s unraveling, but for the blithe interviewer Sheen’s lifestyle as we pass it with the right lane of our every day lives. To get honest, it may be tough for many people to discern the big difference amongst a run-of-the-mill interest whore, and an honest-to-goodness, circling the drain tragedy-to-be. On its own merits, a quote like “I Am On the Drug. It’s Termed Charlie Sheen” is sheer genius, and we can not all be anticipated to get the total measure of someone’s daily life each individual time we listen to something humorous.

Rapidly ahead to 2011 and I'm wanting to examine means of becoming a little more business-like about my hobbies (generally music). Through the conclude of January I had manned up and started off to advertise my blogs. I had put together a number of numerous weblogs, which had been contributed to by associates and colleagues. I promoted these pursuits by way of Facebook and Twitter.

2nd: the small abomination the Gang of 5 around the Supream Court gave us a 12 months or so in the past (Citizens Inebriated) actually contains slightly bouncing betty of its individual that can pretty effectively go off in the faces of Govs Wanker, Sacitch, Krysty, and J.O. Daniels. Given that this ruling prolonged the principle of “personhood” to each corporations and unions, to look at to deny them any correct to run in the legal framework that they were organized under deprives these “persons” of the freedoms of speech, association and motion. Which means (after once again, quoting law college educated loved ones) that either the courts must uphold these rights for your unions (as person “persons” as guaranteed through the Federal (and most state) constitutions, or they've to declare that these attempts at stripping or limiting union rights must utilize to major companies, also.

I love these little white board demos that Austan Goolsbee does on a fairly regular basis. It's such a nice, sane, intelligent version, especially in comparison to some of the bat-$#!% crazy ones we're forced to watch while monitoring Fox News.

In this one, Goolsbee talks up the National Wireless Initiative. I don't know if our generally myopic world view makes the fact that we have such slow internet speeds (compared to other countries) something that is well-known. I suspect not.

But the Obama administration does want to address that and extending internet connectivity to far more people in the hopes of stimulating job growth and thereby, the economy:

As the President explained today, his plan would expand wireless coverage to 98% of Americans, while reducing the deficit by nearly $10 billion by making more government spectrum available:

For our families and our businesses, high-speed wireless service, that’s the next train station; it’s the next off-ramp. It’s how we’ll spark new innovation, new investment, new jobs.

And you know this here in Northern Michigan. That’s why I showed up, in addition to it being pretty and people being nice. (Laughter and applause.) For decades now, this university has given a new laptop to every incoming student. Wi-Fi stretched across campus. But if you lived off-campus, like most students and teachers here, you were largely out of luck. Broadband was often too expensive to afford. And if you lived a bit further out of town, you were completely out of luck, because broadband providers, they often won’t build networks where it’s not profitable, just like they wouldn’t build electrical lines where it wasn’t profitable.

So this university tried something new. You partnered with various companies to build a high-speed, next-generation wireless network. And you managed to install it with six people in only four days without raising tuition. Good job. Good job, Mr. President. (Applause.) By the way, if you give me the name of these six people -- (laughter) -- there’s a whole bunch of stuff in Washington I’d like to see done in four days with six people. (Laughter.)

So today, this is one of America’s most connected universities, and enrollment is near the highest it’s been in 30 years.

And what’s more -- and this is what makes this special -- you told nearby towns that if they allowed you to retrofit their towers with new equipment to expand your network, then their schools, their first responders, their city governments could use it too. And as a result, police officers can access crime databases in their cars. And firefighters can download blueprints on the way to a burning building. And public works officials can save money by monitoring pumps and equipment remotely.

And you’ve created new online learning opportunities for K-12 students as far as 30 miles away, some of whom -- (applause) -- some of whom can’t always make it to school in a place that averages 200 inches of snow a year. (Laughter and applause.) Now, some of these students don’t appreciate the end of school [snow] days. I know Malia and Sasha get really excited about school [snow] days. Of course, in Washington things shut down when there’s an inch of snow. (Laughter.) But this technology is giving them more opportunity. It’s good for their education, it’s good for our economy. In fact, I just came from a demonstration of online learning in action. We were with Professor Lubig and he had plugged in Negaunee High School -- (applause) -- and Powell Township School in Big Bay. (Applause.) So I felt like the guy in Star Trek. I was being beamed around -- (laughter) -- across the Upper Peninsula here. But it was remarkable to see the possibilities for these young people who are able to, let’s say, do a chemistry experiment, and they can compare the results with kids in Boston.

Or if there’s some learning tool or material they don’t have immediately accessible in their school, they can connect here to the university, and they’re able to tap into it.

It’s opening up an entire world to them. And one of the young people who I was talking to, he talked about foreign policy and what we were seeing in places like Egypt. And he said, what’s amazing especially for us is that now we have a window to the entire world, and we can start understanding other cultures and other places in ways that we could never do without this technology.

The new co-presidents of Walt Disney Co.'s digital media group used the platform of the company's investor conference in Anaheim on Thursday to say what Wall Street has been longing to hear: that the money-losing division will achieve profitability in 2013.

John Pleasants, co-president of Disney Interactive Media Group, said the division made significant layoffs in January and plans an additional 25% cut in operational overhead "in our march to profitability." No details on timing were offered.

"In the last 90 days, we've focused on getting the right team and scaling the team to where the business is today," Pleasants said, adding that the earlier wave of job reductions had already "taken millions of overhead out of the Interactive media group."

Pleasants and Co-President Jimmy Pitaro talked about refocusing the business to take advantage of new opportunities online and on mobile devices -- a theme Disney Chief Executive Robert A. Iger has underscored in earnings calls with investors.

The interactive group will begin shifting resources away from developing games for the mature console market, reducing spending by 50% over the next four years, Pleasants said. "That does not mean we won't be making boxed product," he hastened to add, noting the popularity of the Epic Mickey title released late last year.

Pleasants, who oversees games and social media within the division, talked about better capitalizing on opportunities -- not only on emerging technological platforms, but in burgeoning international markets. He said the division will narrow its focus to "four to six major franchises," creating content to take advantage of growth areas, while experimenting with business models -- from free to subscription to micro-transactions, in which players pay modest sums to enhance their online experience.

The group aspires to create its own world-class character franchises that can flow to other parts of the entertainment giant's businesses, much as Pixar Animation's "Toy Story" characters or Marvel Entertainment's superheroes fuel merchandise sales.

One such home-grown franchise Pleasants highlighted is Club Penguin, an online world for children that has grown by 400% in the last three years.

Pitaro, who has oversight of the Disney.com portal and a collection of websites for mothers and families,talked about creating a more personal experience that's shaped by a user's interests.

"When we deliver the right content to the right user at the right time," Pitaro said, "we'll grow reach and engagement and have a more powerful platform to surface the fantastic content we have across our company,"

-- Dawn C. Chmielewski

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Saturday, May 7, 2011

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Thursday, April 14, 2011

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NFL owners, union resume mediation in Minneapolis

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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

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Tuesday, 1 March 2011

Apple Should Consider Business Models That Can’t Afford a 70/30 Revenue Split

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Monday, March 28, 2011

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Wednesday, March 16, 2011

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Monday, March 14, 2011

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