Sure It's Just One Idiot?

I had thought about this before when the NBC/Apple thing first came up, but I didn't write anything then. Today, though, I saw a bunch of posts about News Corp. and Apple, and about how they don't plan to pull their offerings. That news made me think about the NBC thing again. Specifically, everyone seems to be saying that NBC are a bunch of morons for getting their stuff off iTunes, and that they are going to wind up crawling back. While I don't really disagree with that thought (I don't think they're the biggest idiots, but I also don't think they really thought this through), I'm wondering why no one seems to be pointing out that this hurts Apple too, and not insignificantly. The reports I've see say that NBC's offerings account for up to 40% of Apple's video sales. When you consider that their video sales are in probably in the hundreds of millions (albeit just barely making the hundred plural), that accounts for a decent chunk of change. Is it actually enough to make Apple shed a tear? Hardly. The point, though, is that when Apple acted first, by pulling NBC's content before the new season, they are showing that they aren't even going to miss them. Like I said, the dollar amount is a drop in the bucket, but the message this sends is one that if I were a media company, I'd take in with great interest. Apple is the dominant player in this market, but unlike brick and mortar stores, I would think that it would be a lot more dangerous to be a bully in the digital world. Apple would be nothing without the content, just like the media companies would lose all that revenue were it not for Apple. In the world of online distribution, it's a lot easier to put your wares into the hands of the consumers through other means.

I really don't know, though. Maybe my views are just clouded by my disliking of Apple, and their monopoly on the market. Perhaps even more than that, my disliking of the market that put them there. Obviously, the larger potential damage is for NBC, but do you think that Apple is getting off risk free? There are a lot of fans of Heroes and The Office out there.

Why on Earth Would You Email from Facebook?

I have seen a lot of complaints by people about Facebook's messaging not being as feature rich as they would like. They are really wanting something that is more like email than a typical intrasite messaging service. I'm a bit in the middle on this one. On one hand, sure it'd be nice to have messages work more like email, but at the same time, if I want something that works like email, I'm just going to use email. It's been said that the messaging is hardly ever used (I have no idea if that's correct, but empirical evidence supports it), and that usage would likely increase if it were more feature rich. I'm not sure if I agree on that part. If Facebook had a more robust messaging system, would people really use it more, or would they still rely on email? I'll be real honest, I rarely send a message on Facebook. If I do, it is usually to someone that I know, but don't know their address (either they don't have one shown, or they aren't on my friends list yet). If I know someone's email, that's what is going to get used to contact them.

What brought this topic up at the moment is Facebook's new ability to email people using the messaging. Just start a new message like you would otherwise, and type in an email address. Type your message, hit send, and you've sent your email. Two quick things. First, if you put in the email address of one of your friends that they have listed with Facebook, it will detect this, and instead of emailing them, you'll simply Facebook message them. Second, if you put in someone's email address that's on Facebook but not your friend, then it will still email them rather than just send them a message. Now, here's the little part about this that is a bit annoying. The person that you email doesn't actually see the message in the email. Instead, they get the subject of the message, and then a link to go read the actual message.

As I'm sure you can guess, the page with their message on it has all the "sign up now" sort of stuff on it for Facebook. While I can understand why they'll include something in the message about signing up, making the recipient have to click a link, go to a page, see their ads there, and read their message is a bit of a pain. I think that that will kill a lot of usage right there. Just in case, by some chance, someone actually did decide to just send an email via Facebook rather than an actual email (I really don't know why you'd do that), once the receiver got it and complained it'd likely be the last time. Also, sending an email this way means that you'll have to know the person's email in your head, something that fewer and fewer people do as emails become like phone numbers. On top of that, if you're going to be emailing your friend, they probably are already on Facebook, which means they won't get an email that's just get a message. Which might be exactly what Facebook wants. Anything they can do to keep you on their site longer is good for them.

Writing What We Want

Ok, so I'll admit that I'm only writing this post to test out the Windows Live Writer that I downloaded last night.  I've been hearing good things about it for quite some time now, mostly from Scoble, and wanted to try it out.  I never actually got around to it, though, because I didn't really see a need for it.  I didn't really ever write when I didn't have a net connection, and I don't really have a major problem with Blogger's post creator.  It seems, though, that in the last few days I've been hearing a whole lot more about this.  I think that it is largely due to Microsoft just releasing their Live Installer to install their suite of Live software.  As an aside, I've actually been a fan of all the Live stuff I've tried (which I admit is fairly limited).  They all seem to be some nice products, though.  Anyhow, I finally decided I'd grab it last night and give it a shot.  

Part of why I never really felt the need for a special writing utility is that I don't really do anything other than write some text.  I hardly ever use images, and never really do anything else.  So just throwing out some text, and the occasional image, I couldn't think of why I'd need something special.   However, if I did decide I wanted to do some more adventurous posting, this definitely makes it easy.  They have a button for just about everything.  Also, with the ability to add plugins, you can make adding anything to your blog just a click away.  One thing that I've already found and love is the recognition of short-cut keys that are default across Microsoft products.  To create those links I made, I just highlighted the text I wanted and instinctively hit ctrl-k.  Sure enough, up came my hyperlink window.  Beautiful!  It's great to have the things that you use as second nature to work how you'd expect and want them to. 

There is one thing that I don't really like, though, and that is how it does its HTML code.  It puts in all sorts of stuff that I really don't think are necessary, and I personally don't use when writing it myself.   I suppose that you make trade-offs for writing in a formatting friendly environment instead of just typing the code.  Then again, when all I'm posting is text it makes you wonder why I don't just write in HTML anyway...

I do enjoy that I can write posts while offline, and then post once I get back to the net, though.  Before, if I did happen to be without a connection and wanted to write something, I would have to type it up in Word or Notepad, and then copy/paste it over later.  This wasn't horrible, but it did make it inconvenient with the title and tags (yes, I realize the extent of the inconvenience was having to copy two other items, but when the comparison is zero or two, zero is obviously the winner).  This is definitely nice if I decide I'd like to go sit in a Starbucks and write some, as I'm not going to shell out for the use of the hotspots.

For now, I've got it installed on machines and I'll use it exclusively for updating until it does something to piss me off.

Shared Items

I thought that I would point out that while I have been fairly bad about writing anything lately, I do try to share things via Google Reader pretty regularly. If you're a friend of mine on Facebook, you can see all of these on my profile there. To read them at my shared items page, just click here. Check that if you're interested in just seeing random stuff I don't want to write about, but still want to share.

You Can't Get Rid of Me That Easily

Hello again, boys and girls. First, some meta stuff. I'm aware I haven't posted in a month, and I'm sorry about that. Things have been crazy in all parts of my life. Work has been really picking up lately, and I moved into a new apartment mid August. I'm finally getting some stuff settled, and will hopefully get myself back on track. There hasn't been near as much news reading because of all of this, but I have been able to read a number or articles in the last couple days, so I'll give some brief thoughts on those.

First, the one that has been making all sorts of news lately is the Apple event from the fifth. The big news includes completely redesigned Nanos, bigger HDDs in the "Classic," and the release of the Touch. As anyone that knows me knows, I'm not really a fan of Apple, for a few reasons. That said, I can always appreciate cool stuff when I see it.
The Nanos, in my mind, are finally worth the money they cost. Up 'til now, I'm not so sure they were. A quick side note, why the heck do people act like Coverflow is so great? Does it do something magical that I just haven't noticed? Isn't it just a navigation method, that when you think about it is really not the most efficient one there is? Sorry, just curious.
The newly dubbed "Classics" are pretty much the same as they were before except for the space and UI, so not much to say about that.
The Touch is where all the cool stuff is. A lot of people had been begging for an iPhone sans the phone, and this is pretty much the answer. Personally, I think this thing looks spiffy, but still has too many shortcomings for my taste. First, the most obvious, is the lack of storage. Jobs has this stupid obsession with things being thin, but when it comes to a device that is supposed to become your primary portable media device, you need to stick more than 16 gigs in there. Especially when you charge that much for it. Aside from AT&T, everything else that's bad about the iPhone is bad about this one too, so I won't rehash it. It is pretty, though.
Speaking of the iPhone, it has now reached a price that resembles something reasonable. Steve's closer of dropping the 4 gig model altogether, and bringing the 8 gig to $400 instead of $600 has generated the most coverage. The reason that so many people are talking about this, in case you've been out of it this week, is that those close to a million people that bought an iPhone in the first two months of its release are feeling pissed. Jobs' answer to this is that technology moves fast and that early adopters pay more. I can tell you from my HDTV purchase that I've felt the early adopter cost first hand. However, it's an entirely different thing when you've been able to experience the device for close to a year before seeing huge price drops happen. In this case, it was a first of its kind. Just two months after release, the price came down 33%. That's just absurd. To me, this says that the people who bought early really got gouged. Now, there are all sorts of arguments that come in response to this and defend Apple. One of them is that the people obviously thought that it was worth $600, or else they wouldn't have paid that. That is absolutely correct. However, does it look like Apple thinks it was worth $600 when they drop is so drastically so soon after launch? Has anything ever dropped that much that quickly before? That's not rhetorical, I really am wondering. While Steve is right that tech prices come down quickly, I think that this is a bit of a stretch. I think that the reason they dropped this much is because Apple doesn't value the device at $600 so it blatant, "We overcharged you," to all of the people that bought one. If there was something you really wanted, and would gladly pay $1k for, would you still do it if you knew that the guy selling it would be charging less than $700 two months later? Most people, no probably not. That's why I think so many people are pissed.

Lets see, what else has been going on...Oh, Facebook announced that they will start having profiles indexed and searchable by search engines. This means that when you type someone's name in Google, that their Facebook profile might come up. This is something that I think is a neat idea, but I'm agreeing with everyone saying that it should be an opt-in, rather than opt-out service. Facebook was built around the principles of privacy, and keeping everyone out except those you let in. Now, though, the default is that everyone can see you, and you have to tell it otherwise if you don't want that. Well, poo on them. I joined Facebook back in 2004, and have loved it ever since. That said, I'm not happy in the direction that they are heading. I feel like each new feature they release is bringing them one step closer to MySpace. I say that only half-jokingly. While I know that they will never (probably) fall into the pit of despair that contains the likes of the ugly as sin site that is MySpace, I do think that they are on the path to pissing a lot of people off. Even moreso than they did with that newsfeed fiasco (I actually defended them on that one, the info was all already available). This time, though, it's not just opening you up to your friends, it's opening you up to the world. Get with it, Facebook, make this an opt-in feature and don't risk having the users complain. It'll be really easy to do. Really.