DISQUS

One very bad thing about outlook is that it blows up after 2 gigs. Yes, your fancy $150 program cannot process a .pst file bigger than 2 gigs. Nice, very nice

I think it will depend upon how well an individual newspaper can monetize everyone of its online pages -they will have to develope effective advertising campaigns for each one of their pages.

Big challenge to the current thinking, I am afraid.

Do an alexa traffic graph of:

huntingpost.com
thestar.com
nationalpost.com
globeandmail.com

Compare the overhead.

Davis, aren't you constantly amazed by the tension between participation on a social networking sites, identity theft, and privacy legislation?

On the one hand, the person that will broadcast his private conversations while talking on a cell phone in public, spreads his social profile all over to network, is the first to complain about an "invasion of his privacy''. Strange times we live in.

Robert, you may be correct that it is in Apple's interest to attend more of these type of development conferences.

But, it is a bad inference from of Apple vs. Microsoft OS battle of the 80 and 90's to draw such a conclusion. The article would have been better had you focussed on what Apples says is in its best interests and then shown how by not showing up at these development conferences, Apple is misunderstanding its best interests.

Here is why the inference is bad. The OS battle is largely misunderstood. But, you in fact provided the correct clues to why Apple lost the OS war in terms of market share.

You said about OS/2 " I had it loaded and I kept being forced back to Windows cause Windows had more apps and everyone around me had those same apps."

Same experience with a Mac machine. Jobs recently made the same remark -more people were using non-Mac software and network effects largely confined Mac users to environments outside IT departments. Jobs seems resigned to that reality for the Mac continuing.

It is worthwhile to note, also, some of the losers in the computer PC hardware business: IBM, Compaq, etc.

The apps weren't there because MS was "kind" to developers. Remember all the MS vaporware announcements? But the number of apps overwhelmed the buying public, who wanted, in effect, a Turing machine for a computer. Despite only using 2-3 apps, the public generally accepted that it "needed" a machine capable of doing anything.

(One might argue, that, MS actually "lost" the OS war in that its biggest competitor is itself -getting those pesky window's 95, 98 and XP users to upgrade.)

Jobs et. al. have always been about reducing individual choice, eg the human interface restrictions. Now they are consciously producing digital gadgets and not Turing machines.

The iPod was a success because it was a well designed gadget that fit pretty much with what people wanted it do, in an elegant manner, and provided individuals with the ability to pay for music online.

Are mobile phones gadgets or Turing machines? Is the browser an acceptable interface to the OS, or do you need a SDK for a mobile phone? Is an iPhone a mobile phone/browser or is a wireless tablet? Apple has made its bet, consistent with its past decisions. Whether they are right or wrong has little to do with they are "friendly" with developers, or not.

Andy, I am also an attorney -from Ontario, which has in this case very similar laws to the U.S.

The point I raised several months ago was that there were at least two disclosure issues.

1. Section 5, of the FTC Act, pertaining to WOMA.

But also, more importantly for affiliate marketers who are marketing a system for earning money,

2. The new business opportunity rule promulgated by the FTC, which doesn't have the force of law yet. But it is will require a 2 page disclosure, which most affiliate marketers won't know about.

(There is a current biz op rule which probably won't catch most affiliate marketers.)

In conclusion, it is not just word of mouth that affiliate marketers selling systems for earning money have to be worried about.

And yes, the FTC goes after unregistered biz ops all the time.

What was annoying about the debate was that I had posted on Shoe's site material about the FTC's policy on testimonials.

Neither of them chose to read it before debating the topic, which I agree is more than pointless. You have to start from a basic understanding of the law. Your readers should probably start off with this article from copyblogger for an introduction.

On a different note, I found your observation about google very interesting and hope to see more critical commentary about google.

If you re-read the Wisdom of Crowds, you will find a chapter on information cascades.

An information cascade destroys the value of the mean answers of crowd.

Cascades are responsible for sudden surges in popularity.

Davis;

Are the deals basically the same, with the retailer getting a flat fee for renting out the space for the dvd kiosk?

Or is there a sales percentage term which requires monitoring by the retailer?

For years, Microsoft's strategy has been to announce vaporware to halt consumers looking at competition.

I am not sure that this amounts to much more than that.

And while I prefer the OSX platform to XP, I would not be rushing to buy Apple's dongle in January, but I can see many individuals who might be stopped in their tracks by this announcement.

Television should not be as complicated as an operating system.

Davis, thanks for taking the time to publicize this problem. Perhaps more individuals will search on Kiosk fraud and find these posts.

Clearly the Kiosk industry is taking off, with a number of very interesting applications.

But the DVD download Kiosk offers schemers a wide variety of plays. First, the criminal can simply offer DVD Kiosks in "prime locations". This is a simple fraud because no one who had the locations would need to sell the location. Losses will be in the range of $15 -30 million per fraud.

Second, the criminal can offer an "investment" in DVD Kiosks already in "prime locations", various franchises for example. There will be no locations, no kiosks, and a temporary income steam. This will be a ponzi, which can produce losses of over $100 million.

Finally, the criminal can use the DVD Kiosk, much like the original use of vending machines, as money laundering operation. Real DVD Kiosks will be place in real locations, and generate a "tremendous" amount of cash, which local banks will come to accept as normal for the "business". Unlike the old vending machine laundering, the DVD Kiosks will be hooked up to the Internet and use a service like PayPal to launder nickels into billions. Look for this to take off when the DVD Kiosk industry hits Malaysia, China or Russia.

How many class A shares in Google does E Schmidt own, now?

http://sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getc...

Of course you and everyone else cares about which valuation model is correct for youtube. The current debate is about how deal with the obvious copyright liability. But unlike pure audio, many of these videos have the ads in them and so the holder of the copyright is unlikely to complain too much. Now if the copyright holders can track the behaviour of individuals who view their content, well maybe there is a tradeoff in the making.

Too bad, I liked the feed.

There is no reason why there only has to be one fork in Wikipedia. There is no technical necessity for there being "the set" of experts. We could each, feasibliy, choose our own forks of Wikipedia, viist other forks, and just see what evolves. Perhaps from the long tail of the varities of Wikipedia will rise a particularly interesting article.

1. Let's see, unclear adsense revenue as their is no provision for liability for possible stolen content.
2. Worth calculated by a multiple of eyeballs.

Conclusion: where have we seen this type of business model? Oh yeah, I forgot the long tail really does make it different.