Linked List: February 1, 2011

Tuesday, 1 February 2011

Alley Insider claims to have a leaked copy of “The AOL Way”, a new set of editorial guidelines from AOL CEO Tim Armstrong.

This tweet sums it up: it’s “like a sadness factory for websites”.

Jim Dovey on the Size of Apple’s Cut for In-App Book Purchases ★

Jim Dovey, of Kobo:

At present, all in-app purchases require payment of 30% of list price to Apple. At present, this represents 100% of the profits granted to us eBook distributors by the publishers. […]

Overall, I would love to use in-app purchases. I would be happy to let Apple make some money from that. Just not every single penny that the publishers allow us to keep from the transaction.

The “agency model” deal from most publishers requires them to receive 70 percent of the sale price. So something has to give if Apple is going to require third-party e-book sellers to use their in-app purchasing system.

Jason Snell on Apple’s Changes to In-App Purchasing ★

Jason Snell:

What would make this entire policy go down smoother with app developers is if Apple separated its famous 30 percent cut on app sales from its less-known 30 percent cut on in-app content sales. When Apple announced the App store in 2008, the company suggested the 30 percent cut was intended to “pay for running the store.” But app downloads—which are served by Apple and require an approval process—are much more resource intensive than in-app purchases. If Apple were to change the terms of in-app content purchases to be more akin to a credit-card processing fee, publishers would have less to squawk about.

OMS and Tapas = Android? ★

Something I glossed over in yesterday’s Android market share news from Canalys was this footnote:

The Google numbers in this table relate to Android, as well as the OMS and Tapas platform variants.

DF reader AP pointed this out via email:

That really makes me wonder. OMS (Ophone) and Tapas are both Chinese-only. I assume (rightly? wrongly?) that, since they’ve been modified for a native market, they lack a lot (all?) of Google’s normal “hooks” in the OS.

Are things like maps, email, search, and advertising served through Google? Or do they come from Chinese companies? Put another way, are OMS and Tapas variants of Android, or separate platforms forked from Android? As far as I understand, neither OMS nor Tapas have any access to Android Market, so they certainly aren’t helping to build a software platform.

Either way, it would be interesting to know how many of those 33 million Android devices are OMS and Tapas.

Samsung Galaxy Tab Return Rates Hit 16 Percent ★

John Paczkowski:

ITG Investment Research tracked point-of-sale data from nearly 6,000 wireless stores in the U.S. from the Galaxy Tab’s November debut through Jan. 15 and found the device to have an unusually high return rate. According to its estimates, cumulative return rates for the Galaxy Tab through December of 2010 were about 13 percent. Worse, that percentage is growing as holiday purchases are returned. ITG figures cumulative Galaxy Tab return rates through January 15 were 16 percent. Ugly, considering the return rate for the iPad at Verizon since its debut on the carrier is just 2 percent.

Ouch.

Metagames: Games About Games ★

Speaking of Andy Baio, this epic post is terrific:

Over the last few years, I’ve been collecting examples of metagames — not the strategy of metagaming, but playable games about videogames. Most of these, like Desert Bus or Quest for the Crown, are one-joke games for a quick laugh. Others, like Cow Clicker and Upgrade Complete, are playable critiques of game mechanics. Some are even (gasp!) fun.

Since I couldn’t find an exhaustive list (this TV Tropes guide to “Deconstruction Games” is the closest), I thought I’d try to pull one together along with some gameplay videos.

Google Claims Bing Is Cheating, Copying Their Search Results ★

Danny Sullivan:

Google has run a sting operation that it says proves Bing has been watching what people search for on Google, the sites they select from Google’s results, then uses that information to improve Bing’s own search listings. Bing doesn’t deny this.

Like Andy Baio quipped, “I can’t decide if Bing’s move is smart or just sad.”

How Much Does Market Share Matter? ★

Lessien, on market share:

Essentially, the historical advantage of dominant market share has been the ability to raise (discriminately) the switching cost of competing platforms. […]

The table stakes applications (Facebook, Twitter, Kindle, etc.) are available on most of the leading mobile platforms. If not available specifically as native applications, these services as often accessible as web applications. For apps beyond the main set, a reasonably informed consumer can find ready substitutes.

This is a good piece overall. Me, I can’t resist a sports analogy. The object of the game is to win. Market share isn’t winning. It’s just a component that leads to winning. Focusing solely on OS market share in mobile is like focusing solely on batting average in baseball, or yards gained in football. When Microsoft and Intel grew to dominate the PC industry, there was a very strong correlation between their success and their market shares (for OSes and for CPUs). There’s certainly a correlation between market share and success in the mobile market, but it just doesn’t seem to be nearly as strong.

An Android proponent can look at this and say, “Well, that sounds like what an Apple fan would say, now that Android has taken a large lead in smartphone market share.” But Apple never had a lead in smartphone market share. From 2007 through today, they’ve been behind at least one giant (Symbian at first, now Android), and for most of that time they were behind BlackBerry. iOS’s influence on the market has always been disproportionate to the iPhone’s share of the smartphone market.

As Lessien says, profit share seems a better indicator of success than market share — both today, and historically.

Macworld Expo 2011 Best of Show Winners ★

Good picks. (Hard to believe the As Seen on TV Hat wasn’t picked, though.)

Engadget’s Review of the Dell Streak 7 ★

Sounds terrible. Bad software, slow, poor battery life.