Linked List: August 22, 2012

Wednesday, 22 August 2012

Dave Winer:

Think of a protocol like a road. You could have a wonderful road. Well paved. Wide lanes. Great rest areas. But if it goes from nowhere to nowhere, it’s not going to be very popular, no matter how nice it is.

Glassboard Premium ★

Glassboard:

Glassboard premium was created to give you more of what you need from Glassboard — more storage, more boards, the ability to bookmark messages and much more, all for just $5/month.

Great idea.

‘This Looks Like Some Serious Bullshit on Twitter’s Part’ ★

Marco Arment on Twitter giving Tumblr the boot.

Introducing Tent ★

The best argument against App.net is that no matter how noble their intentions and stated goals, in the long run we’ll be no better off replacing one centralized service with another. If we — the tech nerd community who can get this sort of thing off the ground — are going to throw our weight behind an upstart competitor to Twitter, then it ought to be a decentralized service, not another centralized one.

Tent looks like an attempt at such a thing. (Via Loren Brichter.)

Update: To be clear, I’m not turning against App.net. Just making the devil’s advocate argument against it. I think a centralized for-profit service is more likely to, well, actually ship — not to mention succeed at large scale.

App.net Isn’t Just a Country Club ★

Dan Wineman:

So let’s take back our stuff. I love Twitter’s product, but I believe it’s on the path of Prodigy and CompuServe: so desperate not to become a dumb pipe like AOL that it will soon become nothing.

Flipboard Next? ★

Matt Buchanan:

So the question is not whether Twitter’s going to cut Flipboard off, it’s simply when: Will it wait until the new rules kick into place in six months? Or will it go after Flipboard sooner, with the ensuing election news extravaganza coming up?

Twitter Cuts Off Tumblr’s Access to Friend-Finding ★

Matthew Panzarino:

As with Instagram, the change does not seem to have affected sharing outwards, but will impede users’ ability to follow friends that they may know from Twitter. This is part of Twitter turning the screws on sharing information about the users of its network out to other services like Instagram (and by extension, Facebook) and Tumblr.

The hits just keep on coming.

‘It Was Wonderful, Marvelous, Magnificent, Superb, Glorious, Sublime, Lovely, Delightful...’ ★

Erin McKean, on editing David Foster Wallace’s “word notes” for the aforelinked Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus:

For some writers, reading the copy-edits is like going to the dentist. You know you have to, and you’ll be happy, long-term, that you did, but the actual process involves a certain amount of drooling discomfort and incoherent mumbling. Other writers think of copy-editing as massage: someone works you over, and then you stumble out feeling good — kind of dazed, and a bit greasy, but good.

David Foster Wallace’s reaction to the copyedit was more like someone invited him to an all-day grammar seminar (with celebrity photo signings and vendor’s expo hall), combined with a debating society picnic, where the topic was “RESOLVED: This Comma Should Be Removed.”

Bait and Switch: What’s Behind AT&T’s Stance on FaceTime ★

Smart piece by Stacey Higginbotham, writing for GigaOm, on AT&T’s bullshit regarding FaceTime:

In this one paragraph Quinn hides everything you need to know about this move. The shared plans get a plug, the sleight of hand that equates Wi-Fi with cellular access is accomplished, and AT&T plays the network-management card, which is kind of like a get-out-of-jail-free card for net-neutrality violations anyhow. Defining Wi-Fi as wireless helps AT&T in both wireline and wireless net-neutrality fights, which is why this is such an important move.

Apple Pulls ‘Genius’ TV Ads From YouTube and Apple.com ★

Jordan Golson, MacRumors:

Apple does tend to remove older advertisements from its website and YouTube over time, but the company still has ads on YouTube from as far back as November 2010.

When you’re in a hole, stop digging.

The Disciplined Pursuit of Less ★

Greg McKeown, writing for Harvard Business Review:

Why don’t successful people and organizations automatically become very successful? One important explanation is due to what I call “the clarity paradox,” which can be summed up in four predictable phases:

Phase 1: When we really have clarity of purpose, it leads to success.

Phase 2: When we have success, it leads to more options and opportunities.

Phase 3: When we have increased options and opportunities, it leads to diffused efforts.

Phase 4: Diffused efforts undermine the very clarity that led to our success in the first place.

Curiously, and overstating the point in order to make it, success is a catalyst for failure.

(Via Kottke.) I like this as a basic theory for understanding Apple’s exceptional success. Steve Jobs was famous for his pride in saying “no”. At All Things D in 2004, asked about an Apple PDA: “I’m as proud of the products that we have not done as I am of the products we have done.” (Other examples here and here.)

Tim Cook, at the 2010 Goldman Sachs technology conference:

We can put all of our products on the table you’re sitting at. Those products together sell $40 billion per year. No other company can make that claim except perhaps an oil company. We are the most focused company that I know of, or have read of, or have any knowledge of.

We say no to good ideas every day; we say no to great ideas; to keep the number of things we focus on small in number.

Matt Drance on the Trial ★

Matt Drance:

I must admit I’m uncomfortable with the idea that the world’s largest corporation, whatever its name, could be given such a big stick as early as this week.

I’m of a similar mind. I think Apple deserves to win, and from what I’ve read of the trial’s evidence and arguments, I suspect they will win. But I think the net result will be an affirmation of the U.S. software patent system, which is not good at all.

Apple-Samsung Closing Arguments ★

Tim Bradshaw, reporting for The Financial Times:

Mr McElhinny suggested that “every smartphone does not have to look like an iPhone”, showing pictures of other devices including Nokia’s Lumia and a Casio phone.

The Verge’s live coverage of the arguments mentions the Lumia and a Sony Xperia Arc. Although it’s certainly true that Casio makes smartphones that look a little different from the iPhone.

Mr McElhinny alleged that Samsung had “disrespected” the legal process by refusing to bring its most senior executives over from South Korea, a position he contrasted with appearances from Apple’s Scott Forstall and Phil Schiller, its software and marketing chiefs respectively. “They were willing to face cross examination,” he said. “No Samsung executive was prepared to come here from Korea and answer questions under oath. Instead of witnesses, they sent you lawyers.”

I hadn’t thought of the “cowardice” angle here before.

AAPL Share Price Claim Chowder: The Economist ★

“M.G.”, writing for The Economist, regarding Apple’s breaking of Microsoft’s record for nominal (although not inflation-adjusted) market capitalization:

Yet some bulls think that the stellar rise of the firm’s share price is far from over. Jefferies, an investment bank, believes Apple’s shares could hit $900 each and some investors reckon the price could go even higher, rasing [sic] the possibility that Apple could become the world’s first public company with a trillion dollar market capitalisation. This smacks of hype rather than hard-headed analysis. Apple still has plenty of room to grow, but even the brightest corporate stars cannot sparkle forever.

And that’s how the piece ends. Seems awfully facile for The Economist. No one’s arguing that Apple’s “corporate star” will sparkle forever. The question is simply whether Apple’s market cap, now at $665 billion, can grow half again. Given the growth trajectories for both iPhone and iPad sales and the company’s remarkable profit margins, I’d say the onus is on the Apple bears to explain why the company has reached or even neared its peak.

The hardest-headed analysis I’ve seen suggests the opposite: that Apple hasn’t yet neared its peak.