I, like many other iPhone and iPad users am still disappointed that Flash still hasn’t made its way onto those devices. Yes, I’m aware of ‘Frash’ but the big thing that’s missing in that package is the ability to play Flash Video - which is really all I care about (#iwantowatchTheDailyShow).
But what I’m really sick of is the whining on both Apple and Adobe’s part. Apple complains that flash is a closed, antiquated system (see Jobs’ open letter - Thoughts on Flash), and Adobe complains that basically Apple is the one who is using a closed system and basically doesn’t support Flash out of a grudge - and they’re moving on.
Hey Adobe - have some faith in your users. It amazes me that Adobe has just thrown their arms up. If they believe so strongly in Flash’s need to be on iDevices - just build it. Build it as an app or a plugin. And let the market decide (I can’t believe I said that, being a bleeding heart liberal). As someone who helps develop websites and other web based solutions, the lack of even a public beta also makes me less likely to suggest anything Flash based to clients. I recognize how many flash-disabled devices there are out there and by giving up plans to develop a solution, Adobe also is not giving anyone an incentive to continue to use their technology.
Between the U.S. Copyright Office officially sanctioning jailbreaking your phone and the ease at which you can do so thanks to jailbreakme.com - there’s now nothing preventing you from (legally) getting your iPhone to run flash. Just Adobe (well, and a little bit of Apple).
There are also plenty of avenues for distribution via Cydia or Rock that could bring an official Adobe Flash plugin to millions of users, should they choose to install it. Hell, I (and I’m sure many others) would gladly fork over a few bucks for the privilage of having flash capability (especially on my iPad). For the first time, Adobe could actually make money by distributing what has traditionally been a free plugin.
So I guess this is my open letter to Adobe. Put your money and your devs where you mouth is. Don’t take your ball, whine and go home. Like any other business, if you build a product that kicks-ass people will download it - they’ll even tell their friends. Again, have faith in your community. If Adobe truly believes that they have a great product, they should stand behind it and let the community decide. Maybe if they build it, we will come….and download.
I saw this great TED talk by Clay Shirky recently about how we’re starting to have a cognitive surplus in the world and shifting from a society based on consumption to one that is starting to be about creation, production and sharing. According to Shirky, the earth has about 1 trillion hours of downtime per year and the question is what newly empowered masses of people will do with the opportunities presented by digital technology. Will we make LOLcats or more versions of Ushahidi?
Have you ever seen Shit My Dad Says on Twitter? Check it out. Go ahead. I’ll wait. Really funny stuff. Justin Hepburn, who set up the account as a place to share his father’s snippets of wisdom, currently has 1.4million followers, a TV deal, and a new book which is a collection of stories and essays (also called Sh*t My Dad Says).
I’ve checked out the preview on Amazon for the book and decided that it was something that would make for a quick and fun summer read.
I also picked up an iPad a few weeks ago and have been very impressed by how many things I use it for (full review coming next week). What I haven’t really spent a lot of time with is buying / reading full length books on it from the iBooks store. At the risk of not enjoying the experience, I figured Sh*t My Dad Says would be a good starter book.
However, the iBooks store currently doesn’t stock it. Not that big of a deal, right? I’ve heard that you can just grab a Kindle app and purchase / read any Kindle books on your iPad.
But here’s what I found when I went to Amazon to purchase the Kindle version:
Notice anything strange?
Here’s a quick observation on the difference between bytes and binding…
If you look hard, you’ll see that the new hardcover edition is priced at $8.79 and the Kindle edition (digital download) is $9.99. A brand new, hardcover book should NEVER cost more than an e-edition. Ever. Call me cheap, but the cost associated with moving a couple megabytes of text is infinitely smaller than the cost of printing and shipping a hardcover book. Never mind the antiquated royalty system between publishers and authors, I’m not going to touch that here. The whole purpose of e-readers is to (hopefully) do for reading what iTunes did for music (granted, there are some bad byproducts to this system as well) by making it convenient, instant, scalable, and cost effective.
But as the model stands right now, I think e-books in their current form and pricing structure are majorly flawed, no matter how cool the reading device is. Amazon is asking me to pay more for what is essentially the same experience as a paper book (without being able to share it with someone else when I’m done - another rant altogether).
Publishers need to either charge less because consumers recognize that there is substantially less cost involved with distribution and substantially more restrictions when it comes to sharing an e-book vs. a paper book - OR make the e-book a completely different experience than the paper book- one that is worth a premium price. How? I can think of a few ways:
Ability to share chapters or the whole book with friends after completing it.
The ability to annotate pages, add hyperlinks and share notes with everyone else who has bought that ebook.
Enable book club style features where every reader can interact with other readers in real time through the book, commenting and suggesting other books.
Allow for authors to have Q and As IN the book or allow users to peel back pages to see earlier drafts.
Things like this would differentiate the ebook experience, provide a kick ass way of interacting with other readers and essentially make each book come with its own built-in online community (not to mention sell a lot more Kindles, Nooks and iPads so more people could take part in that experience). Need more? Seth Godin has another awesome idea for a paperback Kindle.
Am I asking for too much here? Do you think the problem is that the tech is in its infancy at the moment, or do you blame the publishers (or authors)? Do you have an e-reader device and has it made you read more - if so, how would you weigh in on the pricing, buying experience? Fire away in the comments, please.
I admit it. I don’t play fantasy football. But I’m curious as to why it’s 2010 and we still only get delayed and edited footage from the Olympics via NBC.
Furthermore, why hasn’t the idea of Fantasy Olympic teams taken off? Could that be a key to increasing viewership, knowledge of more atheletes and engagement even before the games start? Here’s my lunchtime thoughts.
I was listening to This American Life online over the weekend. Normally I try to catch it live but hit up the podcast this time. Before the show plays, you get a nice message from Ira Glass telling you that the podcast is very popular and eats a lot of bandwidth – and bandwidth is expensive. So it’s very important that you support the program with a financial contribution. And it is. I try to pledge my support every year to my NPR station (you kick ass, WRVO). You should too.
Bandwidth had to be one of the most expensive costs for NPR. But I have a theory about it that I wanted to throw out to the web to see what comes back at me. For streaming live audio, I don’t see a lot that can be done to get around the cost of pushing that data to thousands of happy NPR listeners. But I wonder about the archived programs, the podcasts, the non-live chunks of audio that make up a large percentage of the audio bandwidth that NPR is responsible for pushing out.
Why couldn’t NPR use a decentralized structure for distributing its archived programs to listeners – via the bittorrent network – instead of dumping the cost of delivery on itself and relying only on contributions to support it. If they were to open the floodgates of archived shows from This American Life to Morning Edition and all points in between – curators would emerge that would volunteer to host a small collection of archived NPR data files on their home computers and serve them to other users. This would decentralize the bandwidth issue, using small amounts of the individual pipes from ‘Platinum NPR Digital Super Awesome Supporters’ instead of NPR’s servers. In much the same way that people collect and share complete shows of Dave Matthews Band, The Dead, etc. the redundancy of that data being shared would result in an even smaller impact on the individual user – since now we’re only pulling pieces of each file from each user.
What do you think? Is this even feasible? Would it build community or would it crash and burn? Regardless, what opportunities and challenges exist for organizations to decentralize their data? I’d love to know – leave a comment and show some love.
I was listening to 
