That is the headline at Internet Outsider anyway. I have to wonder when did $250 million become giving yourself away. While the pundits are pontificating on how bad this sale is when compared to other recent sales like flickr or, worst of all, YouTube; we really need a reality check.
First of all, none of these services are really all that good. Lets face it, they are all virtually clones of each other. We have no ground breaking technological advances in the services that they offer.
What we have is some fairly routine, if not mediocre, software that was slapped together and, through some hefty marketing efforts (read giving away the farm), able to wrangle together a fairly substantial user base.
Anyone who lived through the last online advertising revolt will understand that this is not going to last. Google has found a way to artificially extend this ad boom, but it will end. Consumers grow tired of ads rapidly. The number of clicks will diminish over the next few years, as will the number of people participating in the Google ad network when they realize the only one making money on the ads is Google.
To be honest, I think News Corp. paid to much for photobucket. The software isn’t rocket science. They should have just built it for half that amount. $125 million would have likely given them software that was better than what they got for $250 million from photobucket. Let’s face it. Once MySpace offers a photo/video service of their own, photobucket was doomed anyway.
What I am waiting for is a social networking site that is full featured and gets it. As soon as that happens, all this other junk will fade into the sunset.
Passed by the U.S. House of Representatives back in April, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) will outlaw corporate prejudice based on genes according to a New Scientist article. Expected to pass without issue in the U.S. Senate, GINA will open the door for Americans to seek genetic testing to determine if they are genetically predisposed to inherited diseases without fear of being denied insurance.
Smells like the precursor to GATTACA to me. I don’t know why having this law doesn’t make me rest any easier.
Before we write that obituary maybe we should examine what was left out of the Popular Mechanics article that has the net buzzing with disinformation this morning.
Basically the premise of this article is that, with the cost of coming down, everyone will want to install a home server to handle their computing needs.
I agree with some of the facts in this article. Computing power is coming down in price and everyone is going to want to utilize this new found power in their homes. That is where my agreement ends.
I admit that when I use Windows I have much less problems than the average person, but no one can make the claim that Windows is a sound computing platform for the masses. Security, stability, reliability are very real problems. What home user wants to take on more of those problems.
What a home user wants is something that just works. They don’t want to think about it or deal with maintenance on it. This is why .Mac or Google apps will not be going away, but will actually increase in adoption as time goes on.
In addition to this, the fact that I can connect to .Mac or my Google apps from any device thats connected to the Internet from any location makes it even more appealing. Why put all my data on a server in my home and then not have it when I am at work or at the mall.
No I think Popular Mechanics put out an article about one man’s infatuation with the new windows home server that had little to do with the reality of the common person.
I must be living under a rock to have missed this one. Afterworld is a wonderful online SF short. If you haven’t tried the series YouTube has the first ten episodes online. Each episode lasts about 3 min. Here is episode one to give you a taste.
If I had a top ten list of things not to do if I woke up with a bad idea, I think seeding the ocean to enhance phytoplankton growth would have to be near the top.
A group of researchers, acting on a hypothesis developed by an oceanographer named John Martin, have decided to unilaterally move forward with their plan to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by ’seeding’ iron into the ocean near the Galapagos, Tahiti, the coast of South America, and the South Pacific.
I have to say I applaud the ‘thinking outside the box’ mentality, but what if it works? What if it works so well and the phytoplankton grows so much it begins to choke out other ocean life. It reminds me of the folk song about an old woman that swallowed a fly. She swallowed a spider to get the fly, a bird to get the spider, a cat to get the bird, a dog to get the cat, well you can see where this is going.
Maybe, before we go off half-cocked trying to fix global warming, we should all just sit back and take a breath.
The Arthur C Clarke Award will be presented today in London. If you don’t know much about the Arthur C Clarke Award jump over to wikipedia and read until your eyeballs fall out. For the rest of us, Torque Control has assembled a list of reviews for all of the books on the short list as well as some additional information links you might find interesting. One of the commenter’s indicates that she will attempt to blog the winner live, technology permitting, at her blog Instant Fanzine.
I try to read all nominee’s from the awards lists. I recently read Inclination by William Shunn, a novella that appears on both the Hugo and Nebula lists.
Inclination is a powerful story about a young man realizing that the religion of his father and the story of his mother’s death may not be all it appears to be on the surface.
Although the characters are interesting, the story does a better job with the scenery. I felt like I was on board Neatherview Station. Interacting with the population and able to get information at will by simply talking to Geoff in a nearby Geoff-room. Geoff is the station information AI.
The novella category this year has a number fantastic stories but this one is tied in my mind for first place. Maybe I will tell you which one it’s tied with sometime.
By-the-way, according to a Sci Fi Wire article, William Shunn is in the process of expanding this novella into a full length novel. I can’t wait.
If you never heard of short format fiction, it might surprise you that it could be the next big publishing format. Filling the void up to a short story, short format fiction may just be the cure for the dwindling attention span.
I find writing an entire story in 500 - 1000 words is a challenging exercise. If you think it is easy, just give it a try. Every word must count. Complex plots and lavish character development must be condensed to a degree that, while still imparting the same story, is short and concise.
If you are a big SF fan, as I am, then your in luck. Get a new story each and every day at a site called 365 Tomorrows. A new story is published every day by one of the writing staff, a featured writer, or a submission. I can’t say that they are all fantastic, but I can say that they hit the mark more often than not. Reading one of these stories is a good way to start your day and you can accomplish the task in 20 minutes or less.
April 30, 2010 - One hundred F-22 stealth fighters attacked the United States military bases throughout Alaska. In a daring early morning attack, the Japanese Air force effectively disabled United States early warning defense radar stations. Blinding the U.S. from a nuclear missile salvo that destroyed command and control facilities throughout the country. A second wave of Japanese cruise missiles destroyed or disabled what was expected to be a United States missile counter attack.
The President of the United States, as part of his humiliating surrender address, had this to say:
“I wish we would have never sold those stealth fighters to the Japanese.”
Tried going exclusively to using a social network for my blog. I chose Yahoo! 360, but I looked at most of them. At this point they all leave something to be desired.
