The Brooks Review

Month: May 2011

  • “Screwed” vs An Evolving Market

    [iFlow Reader Staff](https://www.iflowreader.com/Closing.aspx):
    >We put our faith in Apple and they screwed us. This happened even though we went to great lengths to clear our plans with Apple because we did not want to make this substantial investment of time and money blindly. Apple’s response to our detailed inquiries was to tell us that our plans did not infringe their rules in any way, which was true at the time, but there is one little catch. Apple can change the rules at any time and they did. Sadly they must have known full well that they were going to do this.   Apple’s iBooks was already in development when we talked to them and they certainly must have known that their future plans would doom us to failure no matter how good our product was. We never really had a chance.

    First things first: Apple didn’t “screw” iFlow, and they certainly didn’t *screw* iFlow. If anything screwed iFlow it was the very thing that drew them to iOS to begin with: the platform success and an evolving business model.

    Every good business person knows that in order to be successful in the long term you need to have a flexible business. You need to be able to respond to changing laws and changing environments. So iFlow, Apple didn’t screw you — you screwed yourselves. Linking your success to being able to sell one app in one market screwed you and it can and will happen to others.

    To say that Apple screwed iFlow is to also say that Apple directly came after iFlow and said “time to end these guys”. Instead Apple changed a rule that effects everyone in the app store, especially Amazon — not just iFlow. It’s also not fair to say that you cleared it with Apple and that Apple knew they were going to screw you — they likely didn’t know that, at least not the people you talked with. With 50,000 plus employees do you (iFlow) really (naively) believe that all of Apple’s employees were privy to the development of iBooks?

    It sucks that iFlow can’t figure out an alternative, but it’s not Apple’s job to help iFlow run their business. The people they should really be pissed at is the publishers not allowing a flexible pricing model for changing distribution methods — but that probably wouldn’t get them on the Hacker News front page.

  • Follow Me, Follow You on Twitter

    Do I follow you? Do you follow me? What if I follow you and you don’t reciprocate? What if you follow me and *I* don’t reciprocate? Does it matter? If your favorite Twitterer start following you tomorrow, how would that change you? Will you change the way you tweet — the contents of your tweets?

    If you follow me and I don’t follow people that you expect me to follow, does that change your opinion of who I am? If you follow me and I unfollow someone for a stupid reason — will that change your perception of me?

    That’s a lot of questions, but they have all been bouncing around my head since 5/4/11 — the day I unfollowed quite a few people — that I consider friends — when I was fed up of hearing lame Star Wars jokes. I received a lot of commentary from people about why I should keep following and how it isn’t “cool” that I am unfollowing people for this reason.

    Many suggested that I get a Twitter app to filter the tweets.

    I do have a filter in Twitter for Mac and it is called following/unfollowing. I don’t want to hear only what I want to hear from people I follow — I want to hear everything they say, whether I like it or not, if that starts to become annoying then I find myself asking the tough question:

    >Why am I still following this person?

    While writing this post I stopped and did the tedious task of pruning my list of people that I follow, I went from 276 to 199 (probably even less by the time you read this). If I unfollowed you, I am sorry, but it shouldn’t matter to you. This has nothing to do with whether I like you, or deem you “worthy” — it has everything to do with what interests me. I like people that tweet certain things, you just may not fit that group.

    Who follows you, how many people follow, and who people you follow are following shouldn’t matter — because no matter what, when you click follow you see that persons tweets — regardless of what opinion they have of you. ((Of course this does not account for protected feeds.)) If I unfollow you, don’t fret because you can still follow me. The reverse is also true.

    Twitter is **not** Facebook. We are not friends because we both pushed a button confirming so — we just are interested in what other people say. Think of Twitter more like RSS feed subscriptions and less like a network of friends and you won’t get so worked up over all this follower nonsense.

  • Your Photos are *Your* Photos

    Jeff Cormier:
    >Twitpic’s recently amended terms coincide with the announcement of a new deal which sees the service partnering with news agency WENN to sell on the media photos posted by celebrities on Twitter. The new licensing deal ensures that users retain the copyright but by uploading photos service, the company is able to exploit the photos for commercial gain.

    and:

    >The only real way to ensure you remain in control of your uploads is to upload images to a private server or use a service such as Mobypicture which says it will not try to profit off the back of your work. But if you’re a user of any of the above apps, or any app for that matter, read the ToS, and if you have any questions, which no doubt many will (including yours truly) contact the creator of application.

  • Quote of the Day: Chuck Skoda

    “One of the reasons I’m happy Android is around — it’s helping keep malware off my iPhone.”

    Responding to [this](http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2011/05/10/400-percent-increase-in-android-malware-mobile-security-threats-at-record-high/) report.

  • Twitter Comments

    Justin Blanton on using Twitter as your comment system of sorts:
    >Not only is feedback via Twitter less formal (in my eyes anyway), it’s generally more convenient than email (for both parties), not to mention that tweets are much easier for me to respond to because I’m severely length-constrained and don’t feel guilty for being as concise as possible, or for not exploring every caveat.

    I use a dedicated Twitter account and publish on it as I would an RSS feed. I get a lot of feedback on both the @brooksreview account and my personal Twitter account — I think it’s a great medium for short comments. I am sure it saves me a ton of emails as well.

  • WeatherSnitch is Back

    Justin Blanton:
    >Well, version 1.0.5 was released yesterday, and as I speculated would happen, they’ve added an option to remove the ads. Also, following Fahrenheit’s lead, they now offer the option to display the current temperature as a badge on the icon.

    I’m thrilled they made these changes and it will be a tough call with this app back in the mix.

  • Fair Use Laws

    Craig Grannell:
    >It’s also worth noting that these online services appear in part to be relying on fair-use laws. This is why they are rolling out in the US. In the UK, they’ve a much tougher battle, given that the UK essentially lacks even basic fair-use law. For example, it’s not legal in the UK to copy any media, even for personal use. The only exceptions are time-shifting of television content and backing up software, although more recent legislation demands that the second of those things not circumvent copyright protection.

    That’s pretty interesting. It’s always hard to know where other countries stand on these issues when you live in the U.S. — we are both dense and xenophobic here. I find it hard to believe that such legislation will stand for much longer, then again lots of money is spent on lobbyists.

  • Quote of the Day: Andy Ihnatko

    “Microsoft doesn’t have to make back the purchase price. They have to make something of Skype, not from Skype. If they fail to grow as a company, I’m going to conclude that Microsoft has officially and deliberately taken themselves off the list of “A”-list innovators.”

  • The Health Risks of Sitting All Day

    All in a nice infographic for you.

  • Interesting Things Microsoft Can Do With Skype

    Following the acquisition, here are some interesting things that Microsoft could do to take Skype to the next level:

    1. Integrate Skype in Outlook. Not so that you can Skype a contact from within Outlook, that’s too obvious. Wouldn’t it be neat if you had a 50MB attachment to send and Outlook just sent that over the Skype protocol for you?
    2. Finally rid of the world of MSN messenger.
    3. Sell a Windows Phone 7, uh, phone with only 3G data and no talk time on it — leveraging only Skype as the calling means.
    4. Start licensing the technology to be used in other apps and other services, thus increasing the user base. (Facebook)
    5. Start charging for it (MS knows how to charge for things).
    6. Turn it into a serious business tool to compete with WebEX.
    7. Build in the ability to remotely control another users computer for troubleshooting (like LogMeIn does).

    Of course we also run the risk that:

    1. Skype gets five more words added to its name.
    2. And a number for good measure
    3. Microsoft is complacent and does absolutely nothing with it.

    I think Microsoft overpaid for Skype, but I don’t think Skype is necessarily screwed because it is owned by Microsoft.

  • Microsoft Officially Acquires Skype for $8.5 Billion

    If you look on the colophon it will disclose that I am a shareholder in Microsoft. Now that you know this, you should also know that this acquisition makes me completely uncomfortable. I think Ballmer overpaid for something he has no clue what to do with.

  • The Myth of Profits

    Last night I made the [quip](https://brooksreview.net/2011/05/skype-price/):

    >It’s the same problem that Facebook and Twitter face — massive user base with no idea how to profit from it.

    I was pinged later with this comment from [Moncef Belyamani](http://chezmoncef.com/post/5354480516/skype-is-not-equal-to-facebook):

    >Such a bold statement, yet so wrong. It took me less than a minute to find this key paragraph in a New York Times [DealBook](http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/goldman-unit-passed-on-earlier-facebook-investment/) article from January […]

    The link that he provides states:

    >Last year, Facebook recorded revenue of approximately $2 billion, with roughly $400 million in profit, according to people briefed on the company’s results. That is up from $220 million in earnings on $770 million in sales in 2009.

    At first glance it would appear that my initial statements about Facebook are way off base. Here’s the key passage in the above quote from the New York Times: “according to people briefed on the company’s results.”

    In other words no one outside of private investors has seen Facebook’s financial statements, they have not been independently audited, which means they are far less reliable than what these companies once reported:

    – Lehman
    – AIG
    – Worldcom
    – Enron
    – Madoff
    – Arthur Anderson

    I think you get where I am going here.

    I am not saying that Facebook is cooking its books in any way, but I am saying that right now not only do we have no way of verifying that they aren’t, but our “information” is also being sourced from people who stand to gain from a higher perceived value of Facebook.

    This “information” is likely coming from a private shareholder of the company. They are the only ones to gain from leaking this data — if others value Facebook higher because of this then the secondary markets that trade these private shares will only increase the value of a Facebook share, thus making that investor richer.

    Perhaps though you still think everything I have stated is bunk. Take this into consideration then: if Facebook is profitable then why does it still need to raise capital through private investing? In the same NYT article they talk about the $450 million that Facebook raised in additional capital. Are we to believe that they can’t continue along their current path with the mythical profits that are being made right now? That they actually need to double what they make to sustain growth? Or is it that they really are not profitable? Or is it one and the same?

    You could also believe that the company needs that extra cash to expand and grow faster than they could without — if that’s the belief do we really think that they *only* need $450 million? Wouldn’t they be better suited for a public IPO where they stand to be infused with billions? Of course a public IPO would mean full auditing and disclosure of their financial statements and release to the public. Which in turn would mean potential investors would get a true picture of their value.

    I tend to believe the following about all private companies:

    – Information reported by interested parties is unreliable.
    – Companies that are still raising money are not profitable.

    You may disagree, but the fact remains that [hearsay](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearsay) is not permitted in court for a reason.

    [Updated: 5.10.11 at 6:37 AM]

    On [Twitter](https://twitter.com/theorangeview/status/67945499273072640) I was pointed to [this article](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/06/us-facebook-goldman-idUSTRE70359V20110106), which states:

    >The financial statements were not audited and offered little detail about how Facebook generates it revenue, said the source, who did not want to be identified because he had signed a non-disclosure agreement.

    Now Goldman Sachs has every reason to report accurate numbers, but it still stands to reason that any profit currently being made is:

    1. Not enough, thus the additional capital.
    2. Without a full operational breakdown it is hard to say what the net income they are reporting reflects — there are too many ways to report things that can substantially change the outcome.

    It is of course possible that Facebook is making money, without proof though I am inclined not to believe that — and you shouldn’t buy into it either.

  • On Skype’s Price

    Erick Schonfeld:
    >So yes, there is logic to the deal. But $7 billion to $8 billion for a company still hasn’t figured out how to turn 663 million users into a profit machine is a stretch.

    It’s the same problem that Facebook and Twitter face — massive user base with no idea how to profit from it. Five bucks a month for Skype anyone? I’m in.

  • Microsoft to Acquire Skype?

    The phrase: “grasping at straws” comes to mind.

  • Teardown of an FBI GPS Tracker

    iFixit has a nice teardown of what, one model, of an FBI GPS tracker look like. It’s really fascinating and if this is what the FBI typically uses — well it would be a cinch to spot under your car to even an untrained eye. Having said all that I am supremely disappointed with the use of D-Cell batteries, they are basically sticking a [Mag-Lite](http://www.maglite.com/product.asp?psc=6DCELL) under your car — that’s going to effect your fuel mileage.

  • You Can’t Replace Email if You Require Email

    Google Wave was an idea with the lofty goal of trying to replace email, that didn’t work out so well for them. Facebook wants to replace email, and Twitter seems to have the same ambition too (though probably wanting to replace text messages and IM over email). The problem with every service that has been a serious contender of replacing email is these services rely on email to function.

    You can’t replace pants with shorts when your definition of shorts is: everyone buy pants and cut the legs off — pants will still be a viable business (the consumer is just altering the usage). Same too with Twitter, Facebook, et al, they are still relying on email for certain parts of their service (like adding new users or sending notifications) while wanting to replace email at the same time.

    Take a look at the Twitter sign up:

    Here is Facebook’s:

    Neither service would let me signup unless I provided an email address. Two massively important communication tools — for millions of people — will not let you sign up without providing an email address, what year is this?

    If these two companies were in charge when email services were a hot commodity, you would have had to provide a mailing address when trying to sign up for an email account.

    So here’s a pro-tip to all current thinkers out there: if you want to build a service to replace email, **don’t** require the user to provide an email address when they signup.

    There are many practical reasons for requiring an email address to sign up for a new service:

    – Password recovery ((This is easiest when done over email, but can be done with a series of ‘challenge questions’.))
    – Verification
    – Spam control
    – Helping other users find each other.

    There are more reasons, but those four are at the core — the first being of huge importance.

    Remember that when email first came about, it was not tied to anything for users — we had no way of looking someone’s email up (we still don’t). We built our email databases the old fashioned way: by exchanging business cards.

    That’s not entirely practical anymore — however it’s not out of the question to assume that your user is not willing to slowly build their network. Provide robust search and have faith in the fact that users will want to broadcast their “handle” to the people they want to correspond with instead of relying on email.

    Also, please make something that replaces email and fixes all of its problems. ((An impossible dream, I know.))

  • Realism in UI Element Design

    Lukas Mathis:
    >The goal is not to make your user interface as realistic as possible. The goal is to add those details which help users identify what an element is, and how to interact with it, and to add no more than those details.

    Great post by Mathis for the UX Magazine.

  • Justin Williams Reviews the Motorola Xoom

    Justin Williams on the Xoom and Honeycomb:
    >Google’s developer ecosystem lets them down in this aspect. Despite having thousands of apps in the Marketplace, very few of them are good and none of them are great. I have been using Android devices for over a year now the only app I can say I prefer on Android over iOS is Kindle because Amazon is not behest to Apple’s commerce policies.

    This is not your run of the mill review, this is a *real* review and he does a damned good job at touching on everything you need to know about the device and the OS.

  • Defend Behavior

    Adam Hartung:
    >Microsoft spent 8 times as much on R&D in 2009 as Apple – in both dollars and as a percent of revenue – and all investors received were updates to the old operating system and office automation products.  That nearly $9B expense generated almost no incremental demand.  While revenue is stalling, costs are rising.

    and, later:

    >Buying into any of the losers as a “value play” meant you lost money.

    This is a great take on why Microsoft is still on the decline, despite snazzy looking financial statements. See also: [Microsoft Needs to Learn from Apple’s Near Death](https://brooksreview.net/2011/01/ms-apple/).

  • Just Give It a Yank

    Wired.com on how to find and remove a GPS tracker from your car:
    >Just get under your car and look around. If you see a black box, give it a yank. If it comes free, it’s probably not factory-installed. Even if you’re not sure what a normal car underside looks like, a surveillance device is going to look out of place.

    I was really pumped to read this (admittedly paranoid) article, but come on — all the different options Wired gives readers are pretty pathetic. I am going to go ahead and recommend that you not climb under your car and start yanking on things.