The Brooks Review

Author: Ben Brooks

  • Ignite Seattle 10 Speaker List

    Should be a fun event held:

    Ignite Seattle 10
    June 14th at 7pm

    King Cat Theatre
    2130 6th Avenue,
    Seattle, Washington 98121

    Admission is $5.00 at the door.
    21+ Only

    Come out and attend if you are in Seattle.

  • The NYT About to Give Up Its Most Visited Pages

    Felix Salmon:

    The NYT can claim only some of the credit for its dominance of the business blogosphere: this was a battle that the WSJ and FT surrendered early on, ceding the field to the Gray Lady. But now that the NYT has this enviable position, one would think that it would be trying to capitalize on it as much as possible, rather than spending an inordinate amount of management time and Carlos Slim’s money putting together a paywall which risks sending all that high-value traffic elsewhere. (Like Reuters.com, for instance.)

    I have been saying that paywalls are a bad thing, well they are.

  • Perspective: A Flash Reality Check

    When the iPhone was launched it was heavily criticized for not including the ability to play Adobe’s Flash content, fast forward 3 years now and the iPhone is facing the same criticisms. Does it really matter if a mobile device can play flash, does it even really matter if a computer can play flash? I think you will be surprised to learn that, no for the most part it doesn’t matter, and in the coming months it will matter even less.

    2007 the iPhone was launched, it was also the day that Flash started to fade into irrelevance. A bold statement, but am I wrong? Most major video streaming sites (exception to Hulu) now serve their Flash video to iPhones using different encoding methods (even some Porn sites do this now – so I hear), or with a custom app (ABC, YouTube). That leaves just a few types of websites that have not optimized for non-flash devices, mainly Clothing, Games and Restaurants.

    I think we can all agree with the advent of UrbanSpoon we don’t need to frequent restaurant websites, and we can get by just fine without some clothing sites on our non-flash devices. That just leaves one major type of element that you cannot view on these non-flash devices: slideshows. Most photographers are still using Flash based slideshows, as they are the easiest for them to build.

    So without flash here is what you truly cannot do:
    – Watch Hulu (which you can’t do even with Flash on mobile devices)
    – Shop at some clothing retailers
    – View slideshows that are made in flash
    Also
    – See any punch the monkey ads
    – Play Flash Games

    Are you beginning to see why I don’t see the importance of Flash?

    If you are like many of my friends and are annoyingly using the excuse that you are waiting for Flash on the iPhone before you buy one do a little test on your computer. There are flash blocking plugins for most web browsers (or you can just disable Flash in the browser), get one and use it for a week. My guess is that other than YouTube you will never miss out on content, and remember you can view YouTube on the iPhone no problem.

    As for the inability to play Flash based games, well the iPhone/iPad have far superior games that can leverage the touch interface. So why you would want to play Flash based games instead is beyond me.

  • MySpace Turns to New Design, Ad Push to Revive Fortunes

    Liz Gannes:

    Hirschorn graded the duo’s progress so far a B+ “given the situation.” Jones said that the site has 120 million global unique users, same as when they started — and contrary to measures claiming that usage has dropped.

    Because same as when we started is always what you want to have happen in an emerging industry. (heavy sarcasm here people)

  • A Verizon reality check

    Marco Arment:

    This is Verizon we’re talking about. They might “save” us from some of AT&T’s problems, but they’ll bring their own.

    and:

    There would almost definitely be a Verizon Wireless logo somewhere on the iPhone’s case, probably on both the front and back. There may be separate Verizon music, video, and app store icons that you can’t delete. At least one major feature may be disabled at Verizon’s request — say, turn-by-turn navigation — because they want to sell you their own version for an additional monthly fee. Verizon may want a cut of any iTunes or App Store revenue from on-device purchases, the cost of which Apple would probably happily pass along to either users or developers. (My guess: Developers.)

    Verizon has never been a better choice, so it has always confused me as to why people are so gung ho about it. I have the Verizon Mi-Fi and when it gets reception it is great, but AT&T has far better speed and reception – on my iPhone.

  • Report: Sprint May Also Land iPhone

    Completely unsubstantiated, and I really don’t see this happening. 4G standards are not stable enough yet and battery life on these devices are terrible. I would expect Apple to wait a while before going 4G wireless on the iPhone.

  • Twitter Bans In-Stream Ads

    Frederic Lardinois:

    Twitter just announced that it will soon update its terms of service for developers and prohibit third-party advertising networks and developers from inserting ads into a user’s stream. This could mean the end of a number of third-party advertising networks like Ad.ly and 140 Proof, both of which created their businesses around in-stream ads. According to Twitter’s COO, Dick Costolo, the company decided to take this step in order to “preserve the unique user experience Twitter has created” and ensure the “long-term health and value of the platform.”

    This is going to cause a lot of trouble for free Twitter apps that make their money this way (especially with the free and excellent Twitter for iPhone that was just released).

    On another Twitter note check out MOMBO.com for live Twitter movie reviews.

  • Social Networks Capitalize on Facebook Privacy Fears

    Jenna Wortham:

    Pip.io is similar to Facebook and Twitter in that it allows its members to post status updates, send messages and connect with friends. But unlike its counterparts, the service allows its users to keep more of the information private.

    Don’t you worry, I am trying it now.

    [Updated: 5/24/10 at 10:21 AM] Pretty weak sauce right now.

  • Why you won’t quit Facebook

    Matthew Shaer:

    Unfortunately, if these haters ditch Facebook, they’re going to find a paucity of options. Where will they go? MySpace is pretty much dead, except as a music platform. Twitter is cool, but it doesn’t offer the same depth as Facebook. There’s Diaspora, but as of now, the site is just a dream rattling around in the heads of a few college students.

    I obviously disagree (except with the MySpace and Diaspora comments).

  • How To Jailbreak Your iPad

    I have not tried this in my iPad, but I have used Jailbreaks on my iPhone over the years. I have never sen much benefit as most good software now costs money even on jailbroken devices. Still if you do it, drop me a note and let me know how it went.

  • Steve Jobs on WWDC Announcements: ‘You Won’t Be Disappointed’

    My guess is that it is going to be mainly iPhone 4G and iPhone OS 4.0 stuff. I doubt there is any OS X news, but I would not be surprised if Macs get speed bumps across the board.

  • Hulu Gets Tricked into Running on Android 2.2

    Stan Schroeder:

    According to Absolutely Android, the procedure is as follows: Open the web browser on your Android device, type “about:debug” into the address bar and press Go. Go to settings, scroll to the bottom and select “UAString”; then change the setting to “Desktop,” and enjoy Hulu on your Android device.

  • Flash kills browsing in Android 2.2 Froyo

    John Biggs:

    Well, hit about 4:30 and you’ll see how choppy Flash looks on a real page. So clearly we’re dealing with two issues here: Flash is good, on aggregate, for some applications while Flash in the “wild,” i.e. Flash appearing on your average web page, is terrible.

    Given how much I hate flash: no comment.

  • Android 2.2 Screenshots: Our Favorite Features in Froyo

    Let me save you some time: Android is still ugly. You are welcome.

  • “Evil” app shows how Facebook users make their mobile numbers public

    Mike Butcher:

    Of course, now we know that Mark Zuckerberg believes that “if people share more, the world will become more open and connected”. In plain English that means Facebook wants to open up much of your data to the outside world, assuming you haven’t gone through your privacy settings with a fine-toothed comb. That may also include your mobile phone number.

    Must be hate on Facebook day, check out the site itself here. Pretty funny.

  • Does File-Sharing Threaten Your Sensitive Data?

    Kim Boatman:

    The threat is so significant Abrams thinks P2P programs should be avoided. “Peer-to-peer file-sharing programs have virtually no place in a business environment,” he says. “The security of the programs varies widely. However, in many cases, the default settings are not the most secure. The risks of P2P file-sharing are too great to be ignored.”

    I am not sure how prevalent P2P is in corporations, but I would imagine there is a subset of people who use it for illegal downloads at work. This however is the first I have heard of using it for sharing large files, at my company we use HTTP services on our web server to share files larger than 10mb.

  • Facebook CEO: We Will Add Simpler Privacy Controls

    Pete Cashmore:

    I find Zuckerberg’s private response far more impressive than this public one. His private e-mail to Robert Scoble, reprinted with Zuckerberg’s permission, included honest phrasing like “we’ve made a bunch of mistakes” and ” I want to make sure we get this stuff right this time.” Those concessions to critics verge upon being a mea culpa, even if they stop short of a direct apology. The Washington Post piece is much less direct: No doubt vetted by multiple members of the Facebook team, it almost seems to blame the users for being unable to work their privacy controls.

    Taking a few weeks to make these changes is simply not fast enough. Zuckerberg is complacent right now, he knows that not all their users are happy, but in my opinion he doesn’t think this is at critical mass yet. It is at critical mass and changes need to be made this week.

  • Android vs. iPhone (Pros and Cons)

    Great on going Pros and Cons list for people thinking about switching from Android to iPhone or iPhone to Android. This is made by a Mac developer who famously switched to Android (and back to iPhone later) over the policy decisions Apple was making with the iPhone.

  • An Inside Look At Facebook Questions, The Next “Killer App” Of Facebook

    MG Siegler:

    Sid Yadav, a Facebook users in New Zealand, has been using Facebook Questions within his Facebook social circle for the past month or so. His take-away? It could be “the next killer app of Facebook,” he says.

    He also confirms that it feels different from Quora because it “seems to be more intimate/fun/terse than intellectual/useful/detailed.” Here’s his full run-down in his own words — complete with pictures of what it looks like. Notably, you’ll see that “Questions” has been added to left-column of Facebook, where many of Facebook’s main functions lay. Yes, this is going to be a big product.

    (I am just on a Facebook rampage today – and I don’t even like Facebook)

  • Tim O’Reilly’s Contrarian Stance on Facebook and Privacy

    Tim O’Reilly:

    What we’re really trying to figure out are the right tradeoffs. And there’s no question that there will be tradeoffs. The question is whether, in the end, Facebook is creating more value than they capture. I’m finding Facebook increasingly useful. And I think a lot of other people are too

    This is a valid point, I guess I just am not getting much of nay value from Facebook these days. I highly recommend reading this entire post, it is the best summation to date that I have read. I would also add that there is a trust factor with these types of networks, and Facebook is slowing losing that. Trust once lost is almost impossible to regain on the web.