The Brooks Review

Category: Links

  • ‘All Decked Out’

    Dick Costolo on the TweetDeck acquisition:

    >This acquisition is an important step forward for us. TweetDeck provides brands, publishers, marketers and others with a powerful platform to track all the real-time conversations they care about. In order to support this important constituency, we will continue to invest in the TweetDeck that users know and love.

    Translation: “We realize that ‘social media’ experts are a large customer base for Twitter.”

    Here’s the TweetDeck founder and CEO Iain Dodsworth on [the TweetDeck blog](http://blog.tweetdeck.com/its-official-tweetdeck-has-been-acquired-by-t):

    >I’d like to finish with a big thank-you to all our investors for their support and guidance over the past few years, especially Betaworks, TAG, SV Angel and PROfounders. And of course a huge congratulations to the whole TweetDeck team – I’m extremely proud of you and this is a huge win for us all.

    >Time to celebrate!

    Translation: “Money, money, MONAAAAY!”

  • Verizon Ads for Tablets vs. Apple Ads for Tablets

    This is a fantastic comparison, just so happens that last night my wife and I saw the Verizon commercial he is poking fun at. After seeing it I read this Tweet to my wife and she said something to the effect of: “Wait, that was a commercial advertising a tablet? Why didn’t they show the tablet working?”

  • BookBook for Air

    I’ve had my complaints about Twelve South in the past, but that doesn’t change the fact that they make beautiful products — this one is no exception. Love it, sadly I am far over budget on bags from back in 2010 still…

    Also if you have used one of these cases (they make them for the Pro too) drop me a line and let me know how hot your computer runs while using it with the case on. Very curious.

  • Daedalus touch

    A very nice looking new writing app from The Soulmen. I have been beta testing it for a little while now. What I like best is the overall look of the app, which I am sure certain people will point out is not a feature — it certainly isn’t.

    What is a feature is the stack interface — perhaps the best feature of the app in my book. You can have multiple stacks, each containing multiple documents — each stack can sync with Dropbox, in a different location. That’s huge.

    The files that Daedalous syncs are plain text. There are a lot of other great features so be sure to hit the link to find out more, it’s on sale right now for $3.99.

  • Square Not So Great Outside of Restaurants

    Ed Oswald with an interesting take on why Square is not a good option for most businesses:
    >I’ve taken a look at the app and its kind of disappointing. First off there’s no barcode support at all, thus this is useless for just about any business outside of restaurants. There’s also no easy way to run end-of-day reports — something most bookkeepers will tell you that is necessary to make sure your books are straight. Businesses need point-of-sale systems to be fully functional, and Square isn’t.

  • What Digital Task Apps Are Lacking

    Michael D Hopkins on digital versus paper task management:
    >When a paper list is finished, it can be crumpled up and thrown across the room, burned, shredded, turned into a paper airplane, etc. Completing a digital task list doesn’t earn the task-keeper anything more than a brief jQuery color change and a fade.

    He has a really great list going on, with a lot of shortcomings that digital solutions have over paper. He neglected to mention any strengths that digital has over paper — like backups — but that wasn’t the point of his post.

    For what it’s worth I don’t agree with any of the “solutions” that he lists to solve these problems. His second solution in particular sounds like a terrible, *terrible* solution.

  • Twitter buys TweetDeck, so now make it consistent?

    Craig Grannell makes some interesting points about the TweetDeck purchase. I have been asked many times if I think that Twitter bought TweetDeck to have an ‘official’ Windows client.

    Personally I don’t think that is the case, TweetDeck is a pretty ugly looking, crap running Adobe Air app — Twitter could do better from scratch. That said, as Grannell points out, I wouldn’t put anything past Twitter at this point.

    Most likely I think TweetDeck is absorbed and slowly forgotten about over the next few years — this purchase feels like a way to bring those uses back “into the fold.”

  • Wired Implements Apple’s In-App Subscriptions

    Graham Spencer:
    >Wired now offers users four ways to consume the Wired magazine on the iPad, they can continue to purchase individual issues for $3.99, pay $1.99 for a monthly subscription, $19.99 for a yearly subscription or if they are already a print subscriber, access the app for free.

    Nice to see reasonable pricing.

  • The New ‘Trolls’

    Joshua Brustein:
    >World Entertainment News Network, a news and photo agency, announced this month that it had become the “exclusive photo agency partner” of Twitpic, a service with over 20 million registered users that allows people to upload images and link to them on Twitter. The deal allows the agency to sell images posted on Twitpic for publication, and to pursue legal action against those who use such images commercially without its permission, according to the agency.

    Just ridiculous stuff going on at Twitpic, I urge you not to use them or any other service that doesn’t allow you to keep the rights to your photos.

  • Twitter acquires TweetDeck for more than $40 million

    Laurie Segall:
    >Twitter has acquired TweetDeck, an application for organizing the display of tweets, for more than $40 million in a mix of cash and stock, according to sources close to the deal.

    I saw this last night and didn’t post about it because I couldn’t figure it out — I am still scratching my head here. Either Twitter knows something I don’t about TweetDeck, or their management is far worse than I think.

    Typically I would go with the former, but lately that is getting hard to believe. ((Given their penchant for pissing away VC funds…))

  • Sony Hacked, Again

    Electronista:
    >This is the seventh invasion of a Sony customer database that has been reported since late April.

    It is, as of this writing, late May. Seven hacks in roughly a month’s time.

  • Apple Responds to Lodsys Threats

    Apple’s Response to Lodsys:

    >Because Apple is licensed under Lodsys’ patents to offer such technology to its App Makers, the App Makers are entitled to use this technology free from any infringement claims by Lodsys.

    In other words: you done gone and poked the mama bear and she intends to protect her cubs.

    *or*

    Alternatively: you want a legal fight? We’ll give you a legal fight and I bet we win.

    UPDATE: Macworld has the [full text of the Apple response](http://www.macworld.com/article/160031/2011/05/apple_legal_lodsys_letter_text.html).

  • Square’s Disruptive New iPad Payments Service Will Replace Cash Registers

    Leena Rao:
    >Now, with the upgrade, merchants can send customers a link to download an app on their mobile phone called a Square Card Case. And this gives merchants a whole new level of engagement with their customers. And data is another big component of Square’s announcement—Dorsey says merchants will have Google Analytics style data that merchants can access, such as how many muffins were sold, and to which types of customers, and more.

    Not only that but users will be able to pay without their credit card if they have paid with that merchant before — amazing.

    The great thing about Square and the business they have carved out for themselves is that they are helping both the customers and the businesses — it’s essentially a win-win for both. That’s why it shouldn’t surprise you with how successful the service has been. Something like this makes sense for the one man stand and for a company like Starbucks to roll out.

  • Eric Cador on the Touchpad

    Eric Cador the HP European head made a stupid statement that has been circling the web, basically saying that the upcoming HP Touchpad will be better than number one. These statements are incredibly foolish for anyone to make because at the end of the day there is no way *any* company can make something that is better than the best. ((The best is by definition, the best.))

    This is like an Olympic high jumper coming in and stating that not only are they going to break the world record, they will break it by 5 feet. It is a stupid statement to make.

    > We call it number one plus.

    Plus what? Plus crap? Plus B.S.? Plus stickers?

    Mr. Cador, congrats on setting your anticipated device up for letting everyone down from day one.

  • Jeff Field on Standing

    Jeff Field commenting on his switch to a standing desk:
    >I don’t know about you, but I can’t nap standing up. It is one of the few positions in which I can’t nap – I’m a nap champion.

    Jeff has some other great thoughts on standing from a guy who has found many benefits to standing.

  • Technology Review is Way Off Base

    Christopher Mims writing on why native mobile apps are a dead business:
    >As is often the case with Jobs, he was just a little too far ahead of the curve (think of the Newton, his first attempt to create an iPhone-like device) which led him to later reverse himself and create a native app store anyway.

    The only problem is that Jobs had nothing to do with the Newton given that it was developed after he left the company. [Here’s the history of the development](http://lowendmac.com/orchard/06/john-sculley-newton-origin.html).

    >Of course, none of these utopian ideals about a future in which all apps are liberated from device-specific stores and particular platforms mean anything unless developers can make money selling web apps.

    Of course that means that consumers will have to get over their idea of: “the web *is* free.” That and of course web apps would have to find a way to offer the same if not better experience than native apps. Oh and then there are the relatively low data caps in place by mobile carriers that we would need to get around. Also the lack of ubiquitous wireless coverage. Also the battery issues associated with constant data connections. Oh and let’s not forget how to deal with redundancy if the web apps server was to go down. Then of course once we start talking about web servers we have to talk about user data security *and* privacy. Which then leads us to how that data is handled and what it stores — how and when and if a company should turn that information over to the government. That though will most likely need to be figured out by congress, so that should take only 5-10 years to get figured out, meanwhile no one has a clue how to treat that data.

    >But stripping browser chrome off of web apps seems like far less of a challenge than developing for an ever expanding array of devices. With web apps, developers could code once and be reasonably confident their app will work on any object — phone, tablet, laptop, etc. — with a standards-compliant browser. The implications for developer time and resources are profound.

    Because of course here all mobile and desktop web browsers behave the same and consistently so then we would only need to develop for “the web” and not for each device or hundreds of screen sizes. ((Yeah, right.))

    Right, wrong, or other — native mobile apps are going to be around much longer than “a few years”.

  • Graphene

    Alex Hudson reporting:
    >"Our research establishes graphene as the strongest material ever measured, some 200 times stronger than structural steel," mechanical engineering professor James Hone, of Columbia University, said in a statement.

    >”It would take an elephant, balanced on a pencil, to break through a sheet of graphene the thickness of Saran Wrap [cling film].”

    It’s even more amazing if you read the rest of the story. Wow.

  • Mike Monteiro’s Advice

    Mike Monteiro in an interview with Tina Lee on how he achieves his work/life balance:

    >Leaving at 6 every day. Not answering e-mail or the phone after hours. I will bust my ass for you between the hours of 9:30 and 6. You can have all those hours, but the ones in between—those are mine.

    That’s great advice to keep in mind heading into the weekend.

  • The B&B Podcast, Episode 12: DMs and Tacos

    Shawn and I talk about the mess that has become known as Twitter, writing link blogs and eating steak tacos.

  • Mac Malware Breakdown on Ars

    A great take on the MAC Defender stuff. Worth the read, bottom line: don’t install something called MAC Defender and you will pretty much be as safe as you were in 2008.