Linked List: November 11, 2014

Tuesday, 11 November 2014

App as Calling Card 

Dan Provost, Studio Neat:

Tom and I have been reading and thinking about these things for a while, and a few months ago we had a realization. Studio Neat is in a unique position. We are not just app developers, we also sell physical products. Products that are meant to work with the apps in a way that enhances both, as is the case with the Glif and Slow Fast Slow or Frameographer. What if we make apps that are free with “ads”, but the ad is simply for our other products? You know, the products that actually make money?

It was an intriguing enough idea that we decided to try it, first with Slow Fast Slow. As of today, you can download Slow Fast Slow for free. If you are unaware, Slow Fast Slow is our app for manipulating the speed of videos with our interactive timeline. It works amazingly well with the new 240 fps videos on the iPhones 6.

Writer Emergency Pack 

Clever idea from John August: a deck of cards with advice, ideas, and tricks for helping writers get unstuck. Nicely illustrated and designed (including excellent use of Univers). It’s a Kickstarter campaign that aimed small and has exploded way past their original goal. But the coolest thing is they’re donating packs of the cards to youth writing programs, and the more decks they sell, the cheaper each deck becomes to produce, and the more they’ll have to donate.

The project is already funded nine times over, but if they can get a few more thousand backers they’ll enter rarified status as one of the top 1 percent of Kickstarter projects (by backers, not dollars) ever. And you can get in for just $15 — or, just $12 if you want to donate two packs to the youths.

Internet Freedom 

Fred Wilson on Net Neutrality:

This is about something more simple and more important. It is about making sure that the Internet remains open and free for innovation. It is about recognizing that the last mile of the wired and wireless internet is a natural monopoly/duopoly where scale creates massive advantages, just like the electrical grid and the water system. It is about making sure that the massive companies that operate these last mile monopolies don’t use their market power to extract rents from the entrepreneurs, developers, and companies that must go through those networks to reach their customers.

This is about keeping the Internet the way it has been operating for the past twenty years. This is a conservative idea. Don’t change something that has worked so well for so long. Don’t allow the telcos to start inspecting each packet and prioritizing some over others.