Month: December 2011

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I really want to know who believes this might actually be an authentic email from Apple?

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All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side.

George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism
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Another Friday in the race for the Republican nomination: one wishes one could be thankful for it. There are gifts, for a collector of political curios, or absurdities: the “Women for Cain” page, with its stock art and testimonials about the hazards of “husbandless” women; the coverage of Cain’s progress toward his meeting with his wife; the news that Donald Trump is going to moderate a debate in Iowa. Will there be a golden “T” on every lectern? Will he get to fire anyone? We would all be so thankful if anyone, even Trump, could send a couple of them home.

Is this fun? It’s always good to be reminded that the world is a quirky place, but these Republicans are a bit too unapologetic about their extremism for anyone to really enjoy it.

Amy Davidson
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The Lack of Innovation in Google’s Latest Products

Google’s going into retailing:

Google Inc. is aiming to challenge the e-commerce supremacy of Amazon.com Inc. by diving deeper into the fast-growing world of Internet retailing.

The Web-search giant is in talks with major retailers and shippers about creating a service that would let consumers shop for goods online and receive their orders within a day for a low fee, said people familiar with the matter.

Google of, say, five years ago felt like a very innovative company. Obviously they created the first Internet search algorithm that actually worked. They also completely disrupted webmail with Gmail. They completely disrupted web-based mapping services with Google Maps. They redefined what was possible within a browser with Google Docs. And along the way, they essentially created an entirely new web interaction paradigm in AJAX.

Something has changed since then, though. Google feels more and more like Microsoft. In the same way that Microsoft’s profits overwhelmingly derive from their dominant products of Windows and Office, Google’s profits overwhelmingly derive from its dominant product of web search. In the same way that Microsoft uses its cash cow to subsidize its entry into new markets, Google uses its cash cow to subsidize its entrance into new markets.

Most damning to me, though, is that when introducing new products, Google seems to be innovating less and copying more. Microsoft has been this way since its founding. Windows copied the Mac, Office copied existing products like Lotus 1-2-3 or WordPerfect, MSN copied AOL, Internet Explorer copied Netscape Navigator, the Xbox copied the PlayStation, the Zune copied the iPod, Bing copied Google, and on and on. I don’t think there has ever been a significant Microsoft product that hasn’t been clearly derivative of an established rival.

Google’s recent products follow a similar trend: Android copies the iPhone, Google Offers copies Groupon, Google Places copies Yelp, Google+ copies Facebook. Now, this Google retailing product looks like a copy of Amazon. There are even whiffs that Google may be using its dominant position in search to unfairly favor its other products.

Google certainly isn’t as bad as Microsoft (nobody is). And it’s certainly true that Google competes in a ton of markets, and shows varying degrees of innovation across them. But when it comes to its recent marquee products, the really big markets where it wants to gain traction, more often than not they’re just copying the innovations of others.

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Try new things, all the time. Especially those that are a little outside your comfort zone. This is the Internet — don’t act like you’re writing for Time Magazine in the 80s. Stories can be pictures, charts, lengthy essays, numbered lists, or 140 characters.

Dan Frommer, blogging about better blogging.

So many blogs confine themselves to simple prose and ignore the opportunity to integrate media of all kinds. Support for mixed media is one of the reasons I love Tumblr and have stuck with it for so long. Some people have one “real” blog where they put their long-form text, and a separate Tumblr blog where they put everything else. I don’t think there’s any reason to keep that distinction. Indeed, I bet that in most cases, merging the two would yield a result stronger than the sum of its parts.

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All that was lacking was background imagery of strip malls and the Kardashians for the tableau of American hell to be complete.

The Guardian takers on the Grammy Nomination Concert, which I didn’t even know was a thing.