"Are there fact-checkers at The Chronicle?"
Many people claim
Apple is making a big mistake by so jealously guarding the technologies behind the iPod and the iTunes Music Store. In fact, many decry this stance as similar to the supposed mistake Apple made in not licensing the OS in the 1980s, thereby losing the personal computing battle to
Microsoft.
I'm personally not sure which argument I believe. But one thing's for certain, it's not as simple as these people say it is.
John Gruber, one of my favorite bloggers and Apple experts, refutes the idea that Apple is making a mistake by so jealously guarding the proverbial keys to the iPod and the iTunes Music Store.
In fact,
Gruber disputes practically every supposed "fact" in
Dan Fost's analysis of Apple's current business strategy in the
San Francisco Chronicle, in which Fost utters the same claims that Apple's making such a big mistake.
Frankly, Fost's humiliation makes me echo Gruber's sentiment: "Are there fact-checkers at
The Chronicle?"
Filed in: journalism, apple, tech
Oh man, am I a grup?
I don't quite know what to make of
this article. Reading it, one moment I'm thinking "cool," the next moment I'm thinking "you're totally taking the piss out of me."
I do know one thing for sure. Ynnej is gonna say I'm a grup. Or a yupster. Or whatever.
But there are too many things in the article that just don't bear out as being true about me. And too many I don't even aspire to (blecch, who wants to spend $450 on jeans?).
But there are plenty I do agree with too! I
do want my kid(s) growing up listening to the Beatles and Wilco. And I don't care if Wilco's "so over." :P
Photoblog has been updated
I posted a bunch of pictures to the
photoblog tonight to bring it up to date and to backfill to where I left off about ten days ago.
My Flickr photostream
I've gone and finally set up a
Flickr account. No, I'm not abandoning my
photoblog; not by any stretch of the imagination (although I realize I've gone a few days without new pictures).
As part of my redesign of
Webshots, I need to familiarize myself more with some of the more than 90 photo sharing sites I've uncovered in my research. And Flickr's one of the best, so I need to know how it works.
So just to tease you into going to look, I've posted some photos that I haven't posted to my normal "Fun with Light" photoblog.
Go see!
Hail in San Francisco
The cold air we've been getting all week from Alaska and Canada sent us another bout of moisture, lightning, and thunder, and this time there was a bit of hail. So Velma and I went up on the roof for a few minutes to check out the lightning before it passed us by. You can see the icy hail on my jacket and Velma's hat.
Top 5 for Friday
Windows Vista previewThat?s funny, it looks strangely familiar...
» videoAwesome Radiohead cover, awesome video"Just" by DJ Mark Ronson, featuring Alex Greenwald from Phantom Planet.
» Quicktime high quality/bandwidth version» other versionsA glimpse into Apple's OS X 10.5 Leopard?An analysis of patent documents suggests that the Finder will get more powerful via metadata searches performed by an enhanced Spotlight.
» post"And in other news tonight, Voltron got totally served."Adult Swim almost makes me wish I had cable again.
» videoPunky Chips Ahoy! oi! oi! oi!There's nothing more punk rock than, um, claymation.
» video
enews.org added to CSS Mania
My
Google Alerts informed me that somebody submitted my site to one of the growing CSS galleries out there. I've currently got a rating of 10. Cool. So what are you waiting for?!
Go rate it!
New job
Last week I officially started my new job as Senior Designer for
CNET Networks' Community Group, which consists of
Webshots.com and
Consumating.com, plus some as-yet unannounced future properties still in development.
It's called the Community Group because the sites fall in the social media business space, which relies heavily on the engagement of its users. Webshots, where people share photos with friends and strangers alike, and Consumating.com, where people rate each other and flirt in the Interweb's relative anonymity, are prime examples of user-centered social networking sites. While newcomer Consumating (CNET bought it only last December and it's staff is a whopping two people!) sports the latest accouterments like tags, Webshots is notably losing ground to the scores of up-and-comers like
Flickr, both in terms of its technology and its look and feel. They'd decided a while ago that they need to, among other things, redesign the site.
Which is why they hired
a designer who follows the latest web technology trends, practices user-centered web design, and specializes in UI and redesigning websites.
I'm a little sad to leave Download.com, mostly because I worked with some really great people over the last year and-a-half. But with the onset of a recent internal reorganization that moved me out of
Download.com and under
CNET.com, I decided that the new situation just wasn't going to work for me. Too many meetings, a 30–40% productivity hit, and diametrically opposed work and management styles spelled disaster from the very start.
Luckily, I happened to pass Webshots boss-man
Martin Green in the hall (Webshots and Download are both on the 6th floor of CNET Networks' headquarters) and he greeted me with "How are you?" to which I offhandedly replied, "To tell you the truth, I'm kinda pulling my hair out," and then I went merrily on my way to yet another futile meeting.
Apparently he took that to heart and asked my old boss what was up, and it turned out that the Webshots team had been looking for a designer like me to redesign the site. Actually, they'd been wishing they could get
me to redesign the site, but company policy usually frowns on poaching employees from other business units.
I'll miss the folks at Download.com, and I'll miss being "a Downloader." There is a sort of prestige in being able to say you work for the world's biggest shareware site. I mean, almost everyone who's used a computer for any length of time has heard of Download.com or CNET. But lots of people have never heard of Webshots, even though it's probably the oldest photo sharing site, and is in fact the world's largest. Yup, way bigger than Flickr, although they have all the buzz-factor. Way bigger than
Yahoo! Photos, way bigger than
Shutterfly or any of those other print-your-photos companies. Webshots has been around for over ten years, and it pulls something like 22+ million unique users.
When I redesigned Download.com it was a little awe-inspiring to think that about 1.3 million people were going to see my work every single day. That's about how many unique visitors Download.com averages on a given day. But after a while I just kinda got used to it.
'Course, now I gotta do the same for Webshots.
It'll be fun.
PS> They gave me a promotion and another raise :D
Distractions for the masses!
CableYoYoVery cool design for cord management. Perfect for iPods and iSights.
» http://www.cableyoyo.com/Midnight Ukulele Disco"While My Guitar Gently Weeps." On a Ukulele. And it's awesome. Seriously.
» http://ukuleledisco.com/jakepopurlsThis new site went live today and features the latest feeds from digg.com, del.icio.us, newsvine.com, flickr.com, reddit.com, tailrank.com, slashdot.org, youtube.com, news.google.com, topix.net, and comagz.com on one page. The color palette's a little too dark and each entry's entire line should be clickable. But I like their tagline :P
» http://popurls.com/Real-life Simpsons introAww, now I miss the Simpsons.
» http://youtube.com/watch?v=49IDp76kjPw
Distractions for the masses! Friday videos and stuff to piss you off all weekend long...
Can('t) drive 55Students from Georgia State University decide to obey a law to show how stupid the law is.
» video » article"Yeti. It's Eastern European."Ohhhh, now I understand why people like MySpace
» videoDoes this make me a sadist?Hee hee ha ha this is hilarious. A kid gets slapped in the head by a cat.
» videoCarnivore II?The US government wants to sweep the Internet to keep everyone safe. How do Americans sleep at night knowing they voted these people into office? Does anyone remember Carnivore? Oh great, now I'm on some government watch list...
» article» about the original Caranivore programYeah, I can do thatJason, here's why I really wanna play snooker soon.
» video
Autistic teen's hoop dreams come true
To help
Jason sleep better tonight, here's my vote for
feel-good video of the year.
Aaron
Alexis
Anne
Anya
April & Matt
Ari
Bo
Brian
Bryan
Chris
Cousin Carol
Dave & Terri
Dave H.
Debby
Drue
Fibu
Four Waters
Fwegan (aka Ynnej)
Gary
Holly
Hilary
Internet Rockstar
James & Eric
Jason
Jen
Jesse
Jessica
Joey
Kansinee
Karl
Kelly
Laura
Leah
Marc
Martin
Matt
Mike
Morgan
OkayDave
Olya
Paco
Peter
Rick
Rocky
Ryan
Stellah
Tatum 
Trent
Velma
Veronica
Whiskey Media
Yuliya
Yu-Po