Linked List: December 17, 2012

Monday, 17 December 2012

David Carr on Brian Lam and Wirecutter 

Really enjoyed this piece by David Carr on former Gizmodo editor Brian Lam’s recent and very different Wirecutter, but this bit stuck out:

Mr. Lam’s revenue is low, about $50,000 a month, but it’s doubling every quarter, enough to pay his freelancers, invest in the site and keep him in surfboards. And now he actually has time to ride them. In that sense, Mr. Lam is living out that initial dream of the Web: working from home, working with friends, making something that saves others time and money.

In what way is $50K/month — doubling every three months — “low” for a site with a small staff? I’d say that’s great revenue, and eye-popping growth.

Why You Should Want to Pay for Software, Instagram Edition 

Alexis Madrigal:

Truly, the only way to get around the privacy problems inherent in advertising-supported social networks is to pay for services that we value. It’s amazing what power we gain in becoming paying customers instead of the product being sold.

New Instagram Terms of Service 

The Facebook-ification is starting:

Some or all of the Service may be supported by advertising revenue. To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.

Where by “metadata”, they’re not talking about exposure and shutter speed. They’re talking about location. Just awful.

Trim Poster 

Clever new font helps Swedes avoid having their pricks cut off.

Criterion Collection to Release ‘Badlands’ in March 

Rejoice — finally, a great digital restoration of Terrence Malick’s brilliant and beautiful debut.

(And they’ve just released a new edition of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, which depending on my mood is on my all-time top-10 list, and regardless of my mood my top-20 list. Christopher Nolan’s debut Following, and Michael Cimino’s infamous Heaven’s Gate, too.)

University of Chicago Solves Their ‘Abner Ravenwood’ Mystery 

A bit of a letdown, but still amusing.

The Progress of the Human Mind 

Thomas Jefferson:

I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

When Apple Attempted to Buy Dropbox 

Worth a re-link, Victoria Barret’s 2011 profile of Dropbox for Forbes:

Jobs presciently saw this sapling as a strategic asset for Apple. Houston cut Jobs’ pitch short: He was determined to build a big company, he said, and wasn’t selling, no matter the status of the bidder (Houston considered Jobs his hero) or the prospects of a nine-digit price (he and Ferdowsi drove to the meeting in a Zipcar Prius).

Jobs smiled warmly as he told them he was going after their market. “He said we were a feature, not a product,” says Houston. Courteously, Jobs spent the next half hour waxing on over tea about his return to Apple, and why not to trust investors, as the duo — or more accurately, Houston, who plays Penn to Ferdowsi’s mute Teller — peppered him with questions.

Jobs may well have been right that Dropbox is a feature, not a product, but it’s a hell of a good feature, and one that iCloud does not provide.

Dropbox: The Linchpin 

Warren Ellis, after describing his process for writing using an iPad:

Why do I do this? I’ve always hated lugging laptops around, and have always looked for efficient mobile solutions. I had one of those early Asus netbooks. I had a Treo. Hell, in the 90s, I had a Handspring Visor. And I figured that since the iPad was light, instant-on, built for wifi and supposedly fucking magical, I should be able to make it work as a mobile work solution without having to screw around with laptops and crappy batteries and all the rest of it. In the mornings, I just grab the iPad and case and go out into the back garden and sit at the table and am ready to go. I go back to the office, wake up the laptop, and thanks to Dropbox everything I’ve done is already there. It works for me.

The good news for Apple is that not only do many people work on their iPads, they enjoy doing so. The whole key to the growing popularity of iPads is that people enjoy using them instead of PCs (including Macs) for numerous tasks.

The scary part though, is that one recurrent theme I see in nearly every single “how I write on the iPad” story is Dropbox. It’s the linchpin in the workflow. Scary, because Dropbox is outside Apple’s control. Scary, because if not for Dropbox, many of these people would not be using their iPads as much as they are. Scary, because Apple’s iCloud falls short of Dropbox.

Long-time readers know that I seldom opine that Apple should acquire other companies. But Apple should buy Dropbox.

Update: Ideally, Dropbox will simply remain a thriving independent company, and iOS and Mac users will continue to use it as it is. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I can even see how Apple buying Dropbox might make things worse, if Dropbox were “improved” to be more iCloud-like rather than vice-versa. Or if Apple turned it into an iCloud-only feature, locking out other platforms. Why I think Apple should buy Dropbox, though, is that if they don’t, someone else might. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook? (Microsoft is the only one of those that wouldn’t worry me, actually.)