Disqus - Latest Comments for ampressman

Re: Best way to sync Mac and Google contacts? There isn’t one

ampressman — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 09:21:27 -0000

I have a Gmail account. How can I see my Gmail contacts' phone numbers on the iPhone?

Re: In defence of newspapers and serendipity

ampressman — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 08:29:58 -0000

Matthew, can't we replace the serendipity of newspapers with the great online curators who go out of their way to find all manner of items, some topical, some timeless, and aggregate them in a less automated manner? Kottke.org is the best example I can think of but there are many others. I have to say that the stuff I encounter on Jason's site is just as wonderful a mix of enjoyable stuff I would never have sought out as what I read in my print copy of the New York Times.

Re: "People read more than books" and they do it on their Kindles — Officially Lucky

ampressman — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:52:26 -0000

I love Kottke's site to death but he's proving less than articulate in outlining just why he doesn't like the Kindle. You make good points about the quality of the screen and the variety of easily obtained content.

I'd also add that the Kindle has mobile, 3G browser capability (FREE!) that's positively fine for reading RSS feeds in the mobile-optimized RSS reader site of your choice. Instapaper's "send to Kindle" is among the most brilliant hacks of my lifetime. I prefer reading the New Yorker on my Kindle to the paper version (not to mention it arrives days before my USPS-delivered copy). And if you don't want to buy books from Amazon, you can surf to a number of other places (though not B&N or Sony) and buy them.

I just don't get where the heck Jason's coming from and I'm struggling for an analogy to explain his reaction. Is he really so hung up on this idea that all forms of readable content must be treated "equally" or the entire effort is worthless? Bizarro.

Re: Is there a future for business magazines?

ampressman — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 09:57:09 -0000

What about surviving as the long-running, money-losing vanity projects of billionaires? That could work, maybe, maybe?

Isn't Gourmet isn't a great example of a tightly focused niche title? I still don't understand the decision to close it. Crazy.

p.s. I have removed myself from the future of business magazines test tube experiment. What about the future of business-oriented wire services :)

Re: Why do some book publishers seem intent on wandering off a cliff?

ampressman — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 14:24:36 -0000

Great post. I'm starting to believe that it's just asking too much for a once-successful industry to make radical changes to survive. Not to go all Clay Christensen on you, but in business after business that produce content -- music, TV, movies, books, news -- so few embrace the change and so many fight to maintain the status quo. It will probably take brand new players to change things.

Re: Why I use Wikipedia to follow major news events like the Samoa earthquake, tsunami

ampressman — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:26:36 -0000

I'm embarrassed to admit that I never thought of going to Wikipedia for news on a developing current event but it is amazing.

Rex, how do you think this plays into the debate about aggregation sites "stealing" traffic or mojo or whatever from media sites and thereby exacerbating the decline and fall of journalism? Because from what I'm reading on Wikipedia, I'm not feeling a great need to click through to the underlying sources. The entry is, in many ways, more useful and comprehensive than the story in my morning paper. But, the entry couldn't really exist and evolve like this in real-time without those media sites, no?

It's also interesting to peek at the history page for the wikipedia entry on the earthquake. It looks like just a few people (well, maybe a dozen) are doing most of the additions and edits. And while some are active wikipedian, others look like this is the the first or one of the first entries they've ever helped with.

Re: Mac users should stick with online backup Mozy

ampressman — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:49:03 -0000

Glenn Fleishman reviewed a whole bunch of the options for Macworld here:

http://www.macworld.com/article/142606/2009/09/...

Hope that helps.
-Aaron

Re: At home with my friend, Alice Randall

ampressman — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:30:06 -0000

The slide show alone is fabulous. So much personal/family history told in pictures - very moving.

Re: The messy, the missing and the mistakes: Adventures in iTunes Plus upgrading

ampressman — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 07:35:12 -0000

Yeah, I haven't read anywhere how the home sharing treats metadata.
But it sounds like it's for copying brand new songs, really, so it
probably either brings along nothing or whatever ratings etc existed
on the original track. I'd be surprised if it's more intelligent than
that.

Re: Apple still isn’t going to kill Amazon’s Kindle, or any other ereader

ampressman — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 18:55:12 -0000

Would you believe July 2006 is before my time? Well, before both the
Sony and Amazon readers, so before I was paying proper attention to
ebook world and, therefore, I must apologize and will add a time
qualifier to that sentence.

I can agree that Apple is dabbling in the realm of music-related
electronic comic books. But that's original content produced to go
with musical content, like liner notes with an album. Now I have to go
buy it and take a look. Is it DRMed? Is it a format that Stephen King
or Nora Roberts might use for their next best-seller? Pretty sure not.

Re: Mac users should stick with online backup Mozy

ampressman — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 10:16:04 -0000

Thanks for stopping by!
-Aaron

Re: Anyone wanna buy a used Airport Extreme?

ampressman — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:52:08 -0000

sorry, long gone...

Re: Mac users should stick with online backup Mozy

ampressman — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:22:40 -0000

Wow. That stinks. I wonder if it is related to the Power PC or the age
of your Mac? What version of OS X do you run?

Re: Aspyr finally releases Mac version of Civ IV: Beyond the Sword

ampressman — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 08:55:03 -0000

Civ IV Colonization won't be hitting the Mac until 2012, at this rate :)

Re: “Debut pricing” for ebooks: a better idea than withholding them

ampressman — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:22:23 -0000

Mike, your math leaves out the vastly fewer ebook buyers who are likely to find ebooks squirreled away on a publisher's own web site. Maybe this could be done with some super-popular authors (then again, maybe such authors should just start selling ebooks directly from their own web sites), but I don't see how most ebook customers will know to look on publishers' sites. Do you think many customers can even name the publishing companies of their favorite authors?

And what's the DRM plan for such ebooks since Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Sony etc aren't keen on sharing their locked formats with folks outside of their estores? Selling ebooks without DRM would at least let device owners who found a publisher's site make a purchase but I don't think publishers (or authors) favor unlocking their wares.

-Aaron

Re: Apple’s Time Capsule plays nice with Verizon’s FIOS

ampressman — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 11:14:24 -0000

Dunno what to tell you. Haven't had any problems in several years.

Re: Acrylic Software’s Wallet, great password manager for iPhone

ampressman — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:58:21 -0000

That's great news on both fronts! Hurray for good service.
-Aaron

Re: Acrylic Software’s Wallet, great password manager for iPhone

ampressman — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 10:35:40 -0000

You upgraded to 3.1 on both machines? I'm not having a problem like
this with same hardware.

Re: Acrylic Software’s Wallet, great password manager for iPhone

ampressman — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 22:20:42 -0000

Version 3.1 of Wallet just out, fixes sync bugs for me. List of fixes and new features http://www.acrylicapps.com/wallet/changelist/

Re: History and Uses of Amazon Kindle for People Living in Caves

ampressman — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:10:02 -0000

Thanks for piping in. August 3 is the so-called cover date of the
magazine in which the article appeared. It was on the web before that.
And I'm pretty sure that The New Yorker, like most magazines including
my employer, have a cover date one week later than the date the issue
actually comes out. I do not know why...

Re: bijansabet.com | a tumblelog by Bijan Sabet | Wow. Just got to my office and found a package on...

ampressman — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:45:12 -0000

So what do you think? Wondering if it beats using an Airport Express and Apple' remote app...

Re: Amazon really blowing it with Kindle DRM

ampressman — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:56:39 -0000

gravitationalpull (at) me (dot) com

Re: DRM or not? a debate that won’t be over anytime soon

ampressman — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 07:54:01 -0000

Hmm. Left out one of the biggest objections against DRM and just lightly touched on another.

1. DRM thwarts competition by locking content to particular devices. If Barnes & Noble came out with a great Kindle competitor, for example, Kindle owners couldn't switch without losing access to all the ebooks they'd purchased from Amazon. This is bad for consumers as dominant market players gain more and more power and innovation is thwarted.

2. DRM makes content less valuable. Regardless of whether price is a simple function of supply and demand or not (I don't think you're on board with Chris Anderson about the endless supply of digital goods at a marginal cost near zero), "demand" from consumers is a function of real and perceived value. A printed book can be shared, resold or donated to charity. It can be read by anyone, anywhere without need of an additional (usually expensive) device. Because of DRM, ebooks have limited readership, limited uses and limited value.

Re: The Sourcebooks experiment with Bran Hambric: publishers in the early “establishment” stage of ebook adoption

ampressman — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 01:02:13 -0000

This is sound logic only if DRM goes away. As long as DRM limits and devalues ebooks, there is no way very many consumers are going to pay the same for an ebook and a print book (when both are available at the same time).

And, of course, DRM creates a lock-in advantage for the leading hardware sellers. So, hopefully, as happened in the music business, book publishers will come around on DRM.

Re: A context in which to evaluate ebook strategies

ampressman — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 07:49:32 -0000

This seems somewhat reasonable until here:

>>The number of potential purchase points will explode, as many web
>>sites offer some sort of ebook-readable content, a great deal of it
>>free, but lots of it based on the prices set by publishers. Large
>>horizontal aggregators (Amazon, B&N, and the full-line bookstores
>>that build their offerings from wholesalers) will struggle to hold onto
>>a large and loyal customer base as the vertical web increasingly
>>takes hold.

What's the precedent for disintermediation giving more pricing power to content aggregators like the book publishing industry? And why would consumers gravitate to a splintered, fragmented sales market like you speculate rather than coalescing around a few big online sellers? In your world there would be no eBay, no iTunes Store, no eMusic.com, etc. I guess I can imagine a publishing site becoming one of a couple of important sales outlet for ebooks, but it seems like a stretch given their lack of understanding of the needs and wants of the customer aka the reader.