The Brooks Review

Year: 2012

  • ‘The World’s Second-Oldest Profession’

    Stephen Hackett in response to [my post](https://brooksreview.net/2012/05/greed-free-and-change/):
    >Advertising-supported writing might leave a bad taste in some people’s mouths, but it’s been this way for a long time for a reason — because it works.

    I’d argue it’s not working at all, as evidenced by the race to the bottom nature of advertising revenues, the exploration of pay-wall systems in big publishers to help pad advertising revenue (because ad revenue isn’t enough), the fact that more than a few blogs I know need the extra money from members to make writing work full-time, and the overall on-the-verge-of-bankruptcy nature of most news publications.

    No, I don’t think advertising works any longer as the sole revenue stream.

    It may not have failed, but it’s only a matter of time.

  • Refurb Dyson Air Mulitplier 10″ for $110

    I bought this exact fan (refurb too) from Woot! last week for $99. It’s a great fan and works like a factory new fan — now I just need to find a reason to buy more of them (and I need to find the cash to do so).

  • Twitter Stands Up for One of Its Users

    It’s interesting that rather than comply, Twitter is now looking to “stand up” for this particular user. I think this is great, but I wonder how it will be held up in courts, either way as the ACLU’s Aden Fine points out, it is important:

    >If Internet users cannot protect their own constitutional rights, the only hope is that Internet companies do so.

  • ‘The Maturation of the Billionaire Boy-Man’

    A great post from Henry Blodget that looks at the CEO side of Mark Zuckerberg, I particularly like this quote from a former executive at Facebook:

    >“He is not a bad guy,” the executive says. “Maybe he’s not a good guy, but he’s not a bad guy.”

    I don’t like it because it bashes Zuckerberg, so much as I like it because that’s the very real sense you get about Zuckerberg from this post.

  • DocTrackr

    An interesting new service that seeks to maintain permissions and controls on files once they have been shared. It’s not perfect, but I can see it being very handy in corporate settings that deal with sensitive files — or just files they don’t want the public to see.

    One use case that I think is really interesting, as reported by Matthew Braga:

    >Or, if your boss has a new version of the document to distribute, access to the old file can be revoked.

    That feature alone could make a great tool for teams that are collaborating.

  • ‘I Can’t Go For That’

    We all love reading on the web, it’s the greatest treasure trove of interestingness that we as humans have ever been given. We can get news, moments after it happened — often before the big news sites know about it. Or we can laugh all day at people doing incredibly stupid things.

    We can read and watch inspiring content all year long without running dry.

    But who is paying for it?

    In a [popular article by the editor-in-chief of *Technology Review*, Jason Pontin lays out how this problem of free content arose](http://www.technologyreview.com/business/40319/#.T6fn_4Jf8dg.twitter):

    >For publishers whose businesses evolved during the long day of print newspapers and magazines, the expansion of the Internet was tremendously disorienting. [The Internet taught readers](http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/pontin/23489/) they might read stories whenever they liked without charge, and it offered companies more efficient ways to advertise. Both parties spent less.

    Publishers didn’t see a potential problem with going free and because of that, content creators on the web are paying for it.

    The problem is further exacerbated by the fondness that publishers have with advertisements. They are everywhere on the web. But they are simply not the solution to the problem of paying the bills. They are a band aid that we have all been wearing for far too long.

    I say this as someone who makes money from writing that is *solely* supported by advertisements.

    The reason advertisements don’t work in the long run is because of the open nature of the web. It’s not hard to install a plugin that blocks ads (even easier if you buy a Mac given the fondness advertisers have for Flash based ads). ((New Macs don’t ship with Flash installed.))

    Ads are likely not the future, or the answer, because as readers we have many, *many*, tools that allow us to ignore, gloss over, or outright remove ads from content. Even if an advertiser still registers a page view on their ad, when they stop seeing returns on their advertisements they will no longer desire to pay publishers. This is where the market is beginning to head — the race to the bottom.

    ### The Often Asked, Often Ignored, Question

    The most frequent question I get, is also the one I most frequently ignore: are you planning on going “full-time”? By that readers simply want to know if and/or when I will start writing this site full-time.

    The reality is that the landscape is so competitive and experiencing such a race to the bottom, that to go full-time is no easy task. I have much respect for those that have gone full-time with a site that was only a hobby before, but it is no easy task because its about so much more than ads, money, readers, or page views.

    Ads in the sidebar simply don’t pay that well — which is why so many sites have more than one ad. RSS Sponsorships pay better, but are very difficult to fill unless you are a Tier One blog ((Think *The Loop* or *Daring Fireball*)) . And so back to the often asked, often ignored question, of when I will go full-time: when my income from writing matches or surpasses my income from my day job.

    And thus, we have a problem, because as readers on the web we are conditioned to not have to pay with anything more than (sometimes) looking at advertising. But that’s wrong — it’s destructive — and it needs to change.

    Contractors don’t build houses for free, just so long as you look at ads on your walls for the rest of your occupancy — they charge real money, because it takes real money to build a house. So too does it take real money to write a site like this.

    To support writing this site full-time I need income to pay for many different things, not the least of which is paying *me*.

    ### The Way Forward

    I could sit here all day and talk about why I think the current model is broken, but that solves nothing. I personally only see one way forward: asking readers to support you.

    It’s the direct model, it’s old-fashioned, but it works. If blogs are no longer driven by page views, then we — as a whole — get better content ((This site included.)) , content we as readers deserve.

    Because I personally don’t see what [Pontin saw back in 2009](http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/pontin/23489/) as being a web that I want:

    >Editors can charge readers for content that is uniquely intelligent; that relies on proprietary data, investigation, or analysis; that helps readers with their jobs, investments, or personal consumption; or that is very expensively designed. Everything else should be available free, because it is news or opinion, which are commodities and must be offered up to the aggregators, social networks, and feeds. Such content can be monetized (to use the ugly jargon of our industry) only through traffic, which drives ad impressions. Here, although the quality of the editorial should meet the minimal standards of a publication, editors shouldn’t invest too much time or money: good enough is best.

    We see this model now, it’s the jackasstic type of writing that propelled Mike Daisey to fame, keeps The Macalope from running out of content to mock day in and day out.

    When the metric for how much money you will make writing on the web becomes how much traffic you can drive, then the metric for the level of quality and truth needed in your writing is severely diminished.

    *This* is not the web I want.

    I can see a future where the readers of the web find the writers that they love to read and decide that it is worth supporting those writers so that they may continue their craft. It’s not utopia, it’s not impractical — it’s just hard to see through the dust cloud that has been formed by a stampede rush to the free content — a model that was created by the very companies that are now on the verge of bankruptcy because of it. Expectations were set, and unfortunately for us all, they were the wrong expectations.

    I’ve long held contempt for free, and while ads are not free — they are also positioned in an incredibly competitive landscape with many people willing to take much less money for the same work — until of course they realize they should be paid more, by which time someone else will be willing to be paid less.

    That’s a nasty cycle.

    There is a place for ads on the web, but it should no longer be the default revenue model.

    As content creators on the web, we need to decide who we, individually, want to pay us.

    When I stop to think about asking a reader to pay me directly, I often worry that such an ask comes across as greedy.

    However, when *you* stop to think about it, is it that I am being greedy for asking you to support my content — my writing — or is it that society has condition web users to be greedy by asking — no demanding — that content on the web be free for all?

    A race to the bottom is occurring, yet I don’t want to stop writing, but I also am not willing to write for free.

    [As a wise duo once said](http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/I-Can’t-Go-For-That-No-Can-Do-lyrics-Hall-Oates/CE1E9808A7434E5748256A92001193CD):

    “I can’t go for that, no”

    “No can do”

  • [Sponsor] PDFpen

    *Note from Ben: this is my account, that Smile asked me to share in lieu of normal RSS sponsorship text.*

    I had a stack of a hundred of pages of paper. Nothing too important, but everything important enough that it needed to be kept. I could scan it all, but that gives me a bunch of files that needed renaming and sorting. So I worked up a little foo.

    All scans go into a folder called OCR from my ScanSnap, that part was easy enough.

    From there, this [handy AppleScript from David Sparks](http://www.macsparky.com/blog/2009/5/24/pdfpen-ocr-folder-action-script.html) does the heavy lifting. The Script opens each PDF in PDFpen and does OCR on the document, then saves the file back. Now that my document is fully searchable I don’t need to worry about sorting or naming.

    From there, Hazel moves the PDF into my PDF archive folder.

    All of this is done without me touching a thing. It’s like magic and I doubt I will ever run into a build up of paper again.

    I use PDFpen daily, it’s the default PDF application on my Mac. It’s a great app, add to it the iCloud sync with the iPad version of the app (which I really love), and you can begin to get a clear picture of how I keep minimal paper in my office.

    PDFpen is $60, PDFpenPro (which I use) is $100. As a reader of The Brooks Review Smile on my Mac is offering you a special code: [*$15 off* PDFpen or PDFpenPro](http://sites.fastspring.com/smile/product/pdfpen5new?coupon=TBR0512). That means that you can buy PDFpen (or PDFpenPro) and PDFpen for the iPad, for the same price that non-TBR readers would pay for just PDFpen. *(Expires May 15, 2012. Does not apply to upgrades.)*

    These two apps are essential to my daily workflow.

  • Sen. Franken Wants Obama Administration to Investigate Comcast

    What does it say about the U.S. political system that Franken seems to be the most level headed and “on the voters side” of any politician — he who started his career writing for SNL?

    I think it says just about everything, both the good and the bad of the system.

  • Olympus OM-D E-M5

    Sounds like a really great micro 4/3s camera. I was beginning to get jealous, but I am not a fan of the looks or how bulky the camera seems to be. Still, if you are looking at a micro 4/3s camera — this review is the one to read.

  • Facebook’s Mobile Revenue

    Amendment No. 4 to Facebook’s S-1:
    >We believe that mobile usage of Facebook is critical to maintaining user growth and engagement over the long term, and we are actively seeking to grow mobile usage, although such usage does not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue.

    That’s amazing to me. When I think about the amount of time people spend of Facebook’s iPhone app and then think that they don’t “directly generate any meaningful revenue” from that time. Wow. This is a major issue for Facebook because I don’t see the trend moving back to desktops from mobile, umm, ever.

  • ‘The Macro Picture’

    MG Siegler on the jury decision against Android:
    >This is yet another headache surrounding Android, the “free” and “open” OS which has now been found to be infringing on someone else’s copyrights and which the majority of the big OEMs pay a licensing fee to Microsoft — not Google — to use.

    Of course everyone is suing everyone right now for patent infringements, but with Android: what motivation does Google have to protect those that use Android? Apple makes money from iOS via devices sales. Microsoft makes money from Windows Phone via licensing fees.

    Google does not have a direct revenue source from Android (yeah, yeah, Search), so how long do Google share holders put up with Google essentially pissing away money fighting legislation for a mobile OS that has yet to directly make the company money?

  • Quote of the Day: Bertrand Russell

    “Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.”

  • ‘Partial Verdict Finds Google to Have Infringed Oracle’s Java API Copyrights, Fair Use Unanswered’

    Florian Mueller:
    >The partial verdict holds Google to have infringed the sequence, structure and organization of 37 Java APIs through the use of those APIs in Android.

    Google, of course, is crying for a mis-trail. ((On the grounds that, snoooooooore.))

  • Scotty, I Need More Slideshows!

    Lucia Moses reporting on alleged remarks by Steve Hills, the president and gm of the Washington Post:
    >Hills was said to have shocked with remarks that awards “don’t matter,” urged more traffic-driving slideshows over original Post photos, and compared the Post to Ohio’s Dayton Daily News, a paper with one-fifth the circulation of the 508,000-circ Post.

    You know what’s going to be funny, and by funny I mean *funny*: when advertisers realize pageviews don’t mean shit and that big media has been over inflating them for years with stupid shit like slideshows. At least I will be laughing.

  • ‘History’

    Brian X. Chen:
    >“I remember asking the question: Are we investing in a business model, are we investing in a product or are we investing in Steve Jobs?” Mr. Stephenson said. “The answer to the question was, you’re investing in Steve Jobs. Let’s go after this thing. And we went after it, and the rest is history.”

    For as much complaining as AT&T does in this post, you have to think that they are glad they aren’t T-Mobile, or in a slightly better scenario, end up with the slow route to the iPhone Sprint had.

  • ‘What if You Could Write Just One Thing Each Year?’

    I’m signed up, and I wonder if this will be the best or worst email list ever.

  • ‘Why We Work on the Weekend’

    Claire Suddath:
    >For people with kids, finding a healthy work-life balance can feel almost impossible. Women are still overwhelmingly the primary caregivers (according to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 32 percent of fathers married to working women regularly cared for their kids) but they’re working more than ever before. They do still work shorter hours than men do, but now the daily gap is only 41 minutes, with a third of them also working on weekends. When two parents work such similar hours, raising a child requires impressive displays of multitasking, compromise, and advance planning.

    I like that she points out how in the U.S. we pat ourselves on the back for our insane work hours. Personally, when people ask me how much I work I will usually answer: as little as possible. The odd part is that this comes across as a joke to most people — when really it should be our goal.

  • Evernote Acquires Penultimate

    Anybody else confused about Evernote’s endgame?

  • Markdown Editor Debate

    The amazing Brett Terpstra posted his [Markdown Editor Wishlist](http://brettterpstra.com/my-ultimate-markdown-editor-wishlist/), which was met with much praise. Dr. Drang however has this to say:
    >I guess the real problem with Brett’s list and me is that I disagree with the entire notion of a Markdown editor. Markdown is just plain text—any text editor should do just fine.

    I land (mostly) on the side of Dr. Drang here. It’s nice that iA Writer does some of the things specific to Markdown, but it’s not a deal breaker for me if it did nothing but plain text.

    Where I do see a need, is for better Markdown support in iOS text editors. Specifically in getting some of the Markdown keys to the top layer (such as the asterisk and hyphen keys) — that’s something that is problematic because of the iPad keyboard, not because Markdown users need more help.

    Another thing I think we are seeing here is that Markdown is becoming more widely adopted as a replacement for having to learn HTML, and that in itself is going to prove problematic.

  • ‘Apple Reportedly to Release US$799 MacBook Air in 3Q12’

    At least according to the often wrong DigiTimes. The only reason I am posting this rumor is because: why wouldn’t Apple want to do this?

    This rumor is stupid because it is too obvious. Apple has shown over the last 5 years that it is incredibly aggressive in reducing the price of its products, so this rumor is akin to saying: Apple will ship Macs in 3Q12.