Linked List: April 23, 2012

Monday, 23 April 2012

Speaking of cool Kickstarter projects, here’s one that can use your help to reach funded status — Chris Granger’s Light Table IDE:

Light Table is based on a very simple idea: we need a real work surface to code on, not just an editor and a project explorer. We need to be able to move things around, keep clutter down, and bring information to the foreground in the places we need it most.

Watch the video to get the gist of the concept. Granger aptly compares it to a drafting table:

Towards the end of my time on the Visual Studio team, I came to the conclusion that windows aren’t a good abstraction for what we do. Other engineers have large tables where they can scatter drawings, tools, and other information around. A drafting table is a much better abstraction for us. We shouldn’t need to limit ourselves to a world where the smallest moveable unit is a file — our code has much more complex interactions that we can better see when we can organize things conceptually.

The Wrath of Grapes ★

Timothy Egan, writing for the NYT Opinionator:

Sobriety, laudable in many respects, does imply rigidity of thought. The best presidents were open-minded, and generally open to a drink. The nondrinkers, at least over the last century or so, were terrible presidents.

(Via Josh Clark.)

The Unofficial 5by5 Soundboard ★

Fun.

‘We Can’t Treat Newspapers or Magazines Any Differently Than We Treat FarmVille.’ ★

L. Gordon Crovitz, writing for the WSJ:

‘I don’t think you understand. We can’t treat newspapers or magazines any differently than we treat FarmVille.”

With those words, senior Apple executive Eddy Cue stuck to his take-it-or-leave-it business model of a 30% revenue share payable for transactions through the iTunes service. Despite my arguments to Mr. Cue in Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., offices last year on behalf of news publishers seeking different terms, to him there was no difference between a newspaper and an online game.

It was a sobering reminder that traditional media brands have no preferred place in the new digital world. It also should be the defense’s Exhibit A in the Justice Department’s antitrust case against Apple and book publishers: The 30% revenue-share model is Apple’s standard practice, not, as alleged by the government, the product of a conspiracy.

This is one of my biggest questions about the DOJ’s suit against Apple. Why are books any different than music or apps or periodicals? (And, if Apple loses this suit, does it mean their App Store and Music Store 70/30 pricing models are at risk too?)

Update: Via email and Twitter, several readers point out the key difference between the iBookstore and Apple’s other media — the “most favored nation” clause Apple required from the publishers, which forbids the publishers from selling e-books at another store for a lower price than the iBookstore.

Microsoft’s Mobile Comeback Is Looking Terrible ★

Dan Frommer:

One troubling sign: Even now, more than a year after Microsoft started shipping Windows Phone 7 devices, U.S. mobile customers are getting rid of Microsoft devices faster than they’re buying new ones.

In the three months ending in February, Microsoft’s share of U.S. smartphone subscribers was 3.9%, according to comScore. That’s down from 5.2% last November and 7.7% last February.

One complication with Frommer’s analysis is that it’s based on “smartphone share”, not “mobile phone share”. The smartphone category has simply exploded over the past few years. It’s possible that Microsoft is selling more total Windows Phone devices but still losing smartphone share. But, still, no matter how you look at it, this isn’t good.

Update: Via Twitter, Dan Frommer says the raw number of Microsoft-powered phones in the U.S. is in fact in decline:

If you multiple smartphone share by number of smartphones, their total number of devices is shrinking.

He estimates 4 million in February 2012 versus 5.3 million a year prior.

A Game of Sounds ★

John Teti, remembering Dick Clark:

Last week, Clark did the only thing that he would ever do, or could ever do, to besmirch that legacy of Always Being Dick Clark. He died. Most remembrances have placed the focus foremost on his music-related projects, and rightly so. When I heard the news of Clark’s death, though, my thoughts went to the Lyman twins. For me, as I suspect for them, Clark’s legacy is felt most deeply with Pyramid. There may be no such thing as the perfect game show, but Pyramid is the closest anyone has ever come, in no small part because for 15 years and almost 4,000 episodes, it had the perfect host.

I spent the weekend watching hours of old Pyramid shows on the Game Show Network. Teti nails it.

Cargo-Bot: First iPad Game Made on an iPad ★

Two Lives Left:

Cargo-Bot was developed by Rui Viana using Codea. After creating an initial prototype he spent several months polishing and perfecting his design. The completed Codea project was then imported into the Codea Xcode Template (to be released soon) and published as a native iPad application.

A glimpse of the future.

Kickstarter Raised Over $119 Million in Its Third Year ★

Benjamin Jackson, after doing some screen-scraping to estimate Kickstarter’s financials for the past year:

The results are awe-inspiring. In the year since Kickstarter reported its numbers, the company helped raise a total of $119.6M for successfully-funded projects. That’s almost three times as much as the amount raised during the company’s first two years. Taking into account Kickstarter’s 5% commission, we can estimate that the company took home just shy of $6M in commission revenue in its third year. And it’s not the only one cashing in: with Amazon’s commission of 2.9% plus 30¢ per transaction, the online retailer pulled at least $3M in fees during the same period.

Pebble E-Paper Watch Kickstarter Project ★

You’ve probably seen this already, but if you haven’t, check it out. The watch itself is a very cool idea; I’m in as a backer, and looking forward to playing with one. But more interesting is the success they’re having raising money through Kickstarter. They sought only $100,000; as of my typing this they’ve raised over $6 million and still have 25 days to go in their campaign.

Kickstarter is one of the most amazing, inspiring, empowering things I’ve ever seen.

Jay Yarow: ‘Android Is Suddenly in a Lot of Trouble’ ★

Good piece by Jay Yarow at Business Insider laying out the case against Android. But I disagree with the headline. It’s not that Android is suddenly in a lot of trouble — it’s that a lot of people are suddenly realizing that Android has been in trouble all along. Nothing here is new. The fragmentation, the lack of traction on any devices other than cell phones, the tension between handset makers and Google — these problems have been around from the get-go. The only thing that’s actually news is Verizon’s signaling that it plans to make a push behind Windows Phone.

Verizon Signals Windows Phone Push ★

John Paczkowski:

During Verizon’s first-quarter earnings call Thursday, CFO Fran Shammo voiced the carrier’s support for Microsoft’s mobile OS, saying it’s “hoping to do the same thing” with Windows Phone that it did with Android.

This is probably the best news Microsoft could hope for.

Adobe and HTML ★

Leading-edge web standards work on advanced design layout capabilities and more.