Marshall Bock’s Blog: iPhone 4S Template
Pretty much every decent iPhone app ever made also has a website extolling the virtues of the app and its features. And pretty much every one of those sites has one thing in common: an image of an iPhone, its screen displaying a shot of the app.
It’s an incredibly common …
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.
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.
You Guys Are Millionaires Right?
Some very true reflections on being an independent software developer.
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.
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.
All that was lacking was background imagery of strip malls and the Kardashians for the tableau of American hell to be complete.
Seth Godin on the marketing of conspiracy theories:
People don’t embrace them because they’re true, they embrace them because they are more satisfying, they show agency and intent, and they provide a level of solace by implying external causes to significant events.
At the heart of the marketing of a conspiracy theory is that it must be non-falsifiable.
A key tenet of science is that every useful and productive thesis and theory must be able to be proven wrong. For example, if you say, “I have ESP, but it only works if no one is testing or tracking my results,” then of course it can’t be disproven. If you say, “Columbus set off on his journey because a voice came to him in the middle of the night and told him what to do but he never wrote it down nor told anyone,” then we must either take your word for it or move on. No room for science here.
Which is how they market conspiracy theories. Take a look at the many theories about 9/11 or the 12 men in Geneva who run the world or the Kennedy assassination or UFOs and what you’ll see each time is that as soon as anything appears to disprove part of the theory, the theory changes. What is being sold is doubt, not proof. Doubt is something people often want to buy, particularly if it gives them comfort.
Reader redesign: Terrible decision, or worst decision?
By a former Google Reader PM.
