Linked List: May 6, 2014

Tuesday, 6 May 2014

After Facebook Deal, ‘Moves’ App Changes Privacy Policy 

Reed Albergotti, reporting for the WSJ:

Moves, the fitness-tracking app recently acquired by Facebook, has changed its privacy policy to allow broader sharing of user data, including with Facebook.

As recently as Friday, Moves’s privacy policy said the company did not “disclose an individual user’s data to third parties,” without a user’s consent, unless compelled by law enforcement. The policy said it would stay in place even if Moves were acquired.

On Monday, the policy permitted a wider range of data sharing. “We may share information, including personally identifying information, with our Affiliates (companies that are part of our corporate groups of companies, including but not limited to Facebook) to help provide, understand, and improve our Services,” the policy says.

Shocker.

Whither App.net? 

Dalton Caldwell:

The good news is that the renewal rate was high enough for App.net to be profitable and self-sustaining on a forward basis. Operational and hosting costs are sufficiently covered by revenue for us to feel confident in the continued viability of the service. No one should notice any change in the way the App.net API/service operates. To repeat, App.net will continue to operate normally on an indefinite basis.

The bad news is that the renewal rate was not high enough for us to have sufficient budget for full-time employees. After carefully considering a few different options, we are making the difficult decision to no longer employ any salaried employees, including founders. Dalton and Bryan will continue to be responsible for the operation of App.net, but no longer as employees. Additionally, as part of our efforts to ensure App.net is generating positive cash flow, we are winding down the Developer Incentive Program. We will be reaching out to developers currently enrolled in the program with more information.

Count me in with Marco Arment:

I would have loved to be proven wrong on my pessimistic predictions and criticism of their scattershot product direction. They’re good people. But I just don’t see a fundamentally social platform, even with a bunch of other features on top of it, getting a usefully large audience to succeed “on a forward basis” rather than “winding down” without being mostly free and having explosive growth from the start — especially when competing with similar, massive, free services.

Image-Sharing Site Mlkshk Is Shutting Down 

Pour one out for a great little service from some good people.

On Apple Getting the Cloud 

Mark Rogowsky, writing for Forbes:

To look to a more visible Apple cloud success, perhaps we should consider the absolutely massive iTunes/App Store franchise, instead. There, a company who Wilson says, “[doesn’t] have anything in the cloud to speak of” has built a combination of the world’s largest music retailer and the world’s largest software store. Apple has sold more than 25 billion songs and there have been more than 50 billion apps downloaded. (Oh, and the company is also the leader in digital movie sales/rentals as well, though that business is far behind Netflix’s subscription-style offerings.)

Apple’s revenues from all those downloads would total $23.5 billion if it were accounted for as a standalone business, according to Asymco. That small part of Apple’s overall business would be #130 on the Fortune 500 if it were a standalone company. For a sense of just how much that is, Facebook — the company Wilson says will be the second-most valuable behind Google in 2020 — took in just under $8 billion last year. For having “nothing,” Apple’s producing a good deal more than nothing in cloud revenues.

Joanna Stern Reviews the Updated MacBook Airs 

Joanna Stern:

It’s still got the same unmatched trackpad response, comfortable backlit keyboard and sturdy aluminum build. The 11-inch version costs $899 and has 9 hours of battery life, but I’d suggest going for the $999 13-inch version if you need more screen and keyboard real estate, an SD card slot and 12 hours of battery life. Even if you double the internal storage to 256GB and double the RAM to 8GB, the total cost is still $1,299.

My verdict: If you need a new laptop, this is the one to buy, especially with the $100 price cut. In fact, that’s been my verdict on the Air for several years. I’ve never met a better laptop. And I’ve met a lot of laptops.

Twitter Is a Social Media Platform, Not a Social Network 

Smart piece by Will Oremus for Slate:

But Wall Street — along with everyone else who’s down on Twitter because it has “a growth problem” — is making a mistake by comparing it to Facebook. Twitter is not a social network. Not primarily, anyway. It’s better described as a social media platform, with the emphasis on “media platform.” And media platforms should not be judged by the same metrics as social networks.

Social networks connect people with one another. Those connections tend to be reciprocal. Facebook even checks in on you now and then to make sure you’ve actually met the folks who are sending you friend requests. As a social network, its chief function is to help friends, family, and acquaintances keep in touch.

Media platforms, by contrast, connect publishers with their public. Those connections tend not to be reciprocal. One Twitter user may be followed by millions of strangers whom she feels no obligation to follow back, any more than an evening news anchor feels the need to check in with each of her viewers every night at 6.

See also: Nitasha Tiku writing for Valleywag on Twitter and “monthly active users” as a metric for its growth.

Install Hoefler & Co. Fonts on iOS 

Hoefler & Co.:

Great mobile apps like Pages, Numbers, and Keynote make it easier than ever to use your iPad and iPhone not just to consume content, but to create it. Typography, a long-missing piece of the puzzle, just got a lot better: starting today, your iOS 7 devices can use all the Hoefler & Co. fonts you’ve ever purchased, and you can install them directly from this site. Free.

For those of us who care about typography, this is such a big deal. I still think Apple needs a better way to allow font management though — Font Book for iOS, more or less.

How Things Change 

Steven Frank, reviewing the then-brand-new Danger Hiptop (from the team that went on to create Android):

The camera application lets you store up to 36 postage-stamp size color photos with the included camera attachment. The camera is about the size of a quarter, and maybe half an inch thick. It attaches to the device via a mini-jack, and thus can be swiveled in any direction. The camera application shows you a preview of what the camera is seeing, updated every couple of seconds, and you can choose to capture at any time. Once stored in the album, pictures can be emailed straight from the device as .jpg attachments. The quality is about what you’d expect from a quarter-sized camera. Not great. But it is a very fun “extra” which I’m glad they added. Being able to be anywhere, take a picture of something, and email it to someone, is pretty darn cool, even if the image quality is not really sufficient to be useful for any practical purpose.

I re-read this after fixing the link from my post linking to it back when it was new — which was so long ago, it was before Daring Fireball even had linked list entries.

Update, November 2024: Internet Archive copy of the original.