Yearly Archives: 2012

Facebook’s staggering mistake

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Facebook (FB) announced on Tuesday that it will begin opening Facebook Messenger to consumers who do not have a Facebook account, starting in countries like India and South Africa, and later rolling out the service in the United States and Europe. This is a belated acknowledgement of a staggering strategic mistake Facebook made two years ago. That is when the messaging app competition was still wide open and giants like Facebook or Google (GOOG) could have entered the competition.

Review: Flashback X4 Delay

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I have a love/hate relationship with delay pedals. I love how they can sound, but trying to get that perfect delay results in failure more times than I ever see success. […]

Developers shun Microsoft’s Surface

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Despite offering more lucrative revenue splits for app developers than competitors Google and Apple, many of the largest digital media properties in the U.S. and makers of the most-popular tablet apps have decided that developing apps for the Surface — and the Windows app store in general — is not yet worth their time.

Developers are key to the success of any platform.

Free speech on the Internet

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Nilay Patel:

And as more and more speech takes place on the internet, the answer becomes more and more important: the future of free speech might have more to do with corporate censorship than the First Amendment.

Amazing how many people don’t understand the distinction.

“Rupert gave up”

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Jack Shafer:

To place The Daily venture in scale, the last attempt to start a national, general-interest print newspaper from the ground up—USA Today—lost $600 million over the course of a decade before turning its first profit in 1994. (In today’s money, that’s more than $1 billion.) The National, the national sports daily, lost $150 million (about $250 million, corrected for inflation) in 18 months before closing in June 1991. In the late 1990s, when Murdoch was trying to crash the China satellite TV market, he had invested $2 billion and was losing $2 million a week according to his former right-hand man in that enterprise. So, please, let’s not obsess too much over Murdoch’s squandering of $30 million a year on a failed experiment. In the history of journalistic bets, this was a trivial gamble.

NASA’s breathtaking “Earth As Art” photos are now a free e-book

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NASA:

This book celebrates Earth’s aesthetic beauty in the patterns, shapes, colors, and textures of the land, oceans, ice, and atmosphere. The book features 75 stunning images of Earth from the Terra, Landsat 5, Landsat 7, EO-1, and Aqua satellites. Sensors on these satellites can measure light outside of the visible range, so the images show more than what is visible to the naked eye. The images are intended for viewing enjoyment rather than scientific interpretation. The beauty of Earth is clear, and the artistry ranges from the surreal to the sublime.

Your tax dollars paid for it so you might as well grab the PDF or the iPad app.

iTunes Holdouts

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Conrad MacIntyre tells the holdouts to call it what it is and not use the artistic excuse. Good point.

Even when you gotta go, social media goes too

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USA Today:

If you have found yourself using Facebook and Twitter in the bathroom, you are not the only one.

Nearly one-third (32%) of the heaviest adopters of social networks — those ages 18 to 24— connect with sites such as Facebook and Twitter in the bathroom.

More than one-fourth (28%) of those ages 25-34 are bathroom social networkers, as are 15% of those ages 35-44. Both sexes are equally likely to use social networks in the bathroom, with 14% of them saying they do.

Guess where I’m posting this from?

Lessons from the demise of The Daily

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Jeff Sonderman for Poynter:

Being the first-of-a-kind is as dangerous as it is exciting in the technology world. With few or no prior examples to learn from, you’re left to try stuff and learn the hard way. With the benefit of hindsight, there seem to be at least two major lessons from The Daily’s failure.

Anytune [Sponsor]

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Musicians of all kinds use Anytune to learn, transcribe and practice their favorite songs!

Check out Jim’s guitar stylings in a rare solo version of a theme that fans of The Loop should recognize. Something unexpected happened when tuning the track that hints at the source of Jim’s power… You’ll have to watch the video on this page to find out what it might be.

Music Practice Perfected.

Designs of sites meant to be read

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Ben Brooks takes an interesting look at some of the most popular sites for tech news hounds and how much of their Web site is dedicated to the reader and how much is useless junk.

Getting the most from RSS feeds

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Gabe Weatherhead:

RSS is time-shifted news. It’s closer to a newspaper than a radio station. I visit a news feed when I have time to read. Like a newspaper, the value comes from being judicious in using my time. I can’t read everything but, I want to read every good thing.

I use RSS everyday and find it very useful — that’s why I offer an RSS feed for The Loop and a full text feed for members. Sometimes it does get out of hand though, so maybe these tips will help you.

Marketing your app

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Brett Terpstra offers some advice for new developers on how to release and market their app.

Eye tracking in design

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Fascinating when you see all the things that go into making up a Web site design.

News Corp. kills The Daily

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News Corp. is calling it quits on its “The Daily,” a daily newspaper produced for iPad and other tablets.

Eddie Van Halen talks about his solo on “Beat It”

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Van Halen was a surprise guest on “Beat It,” the album’s third single. His blazing guitar solo lasted all of 20 seconds and took half an hour to record. He did it for free, as a favor to producer Quincy Jones, while the rest of his Van Halen bandmates were out of town.

Eddie is one of the greatest guitarists that has ever picked up the instrument.