Linked List: June 11, 2015

Thursday, 11 June 2015

Paul Ford: ‘What Is Code?’ 

Jaw-dropping, epic-length work of art from Paul Ford. Save this for when you have time to sit back and let it sink in. Glorious.

European Commission Opens Antitrust Investigation Into Amazon’s E-Book Distribution Arrangements 

The European Commission:

The European Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation into certain business practices by Amazon in the distribution of electronic books (“e-books”). The Commission will in particular investigate certain clauses included in Amazon’s contracts with publishers. These clauses require publishers to inform Amazon about more favourable or alternative terms offered to Amazon’s competitors and/or offer Amazon similar terms and conditions than to its competitors, or through other means ensure that Amazon is offered terms at least as good as those for its competitors.

The Commission has concerns that such clauses may make it more difficult for other e-book distributors to compete with Amazon by developing new and innovative products and services. The Commission will investigate whether such clauses may limit competition between different e-book distributors and may reduce choice for consumers.

iOS 9 ‘Content Blocking’ Extension API for Mobile Safari 

Benjamin Mayo, writing for 9to5Mac:

Ad blocking extensions have been possible on Safari for Mac for a long time, but plugin architecture for Safari on iOS is much more limited. With iOS 9, Apple has added a special case of extension for ad blockers. Apps can now include “content blocker” extensions that define resources (like images and scripts) for Safari to not load. For the first time, this architecture makes ad blockers a real possibility for iOS developers to make and iOS customers to install and use.

The inclusion of such a feature at this time is interesting. Apple is also pushing its own news solution in iOS 9 with the News app, which will include ads but not be affected by the content blocking extensions as they only apply to Safari. There is also clearly the potential for Safari ad blockers to hurt Google, which seems to be a common trend with Apple’s announcements recently…

I think the timing with News is coincidental. But this is huge news — there are way more iOS Safari users than OS X Safari users.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo to Step Down 

Vindu Goel, reporting for the NYT:

Dick Costolo, Twitter’s embattled chief executive, is stepping down, the company said Thursday.

Jack Dorsey, the company’s co-founder and chairman, will serve as interim chief executive while the board searches for a permanent successor.

The change is effective July 1. Twitter shares were up more than 7 percent in after-hours trading immediately after the news was announced.

Rightly or wrongly, the writing has been on the wall: Wall Street wanted Costolo out. But I think what Wall Street wants is a pipe dream: for Twitter to turn into another Facebook. No CEO is going to make that happen. Maybe someone else will do better, but I think Costolo started with a hand dealt from a stacked deck.

My biggest fear: Twitter brings in a new CEO with a plan that pleases Wall Street but ruins Twitter as we know it.

My biggest hope: the new CEO resuscitates Twitter’s neutered, stagnant developer platform.