Technology

Money / Technology / Web — No Comments
20
Jun 11

Hesitancy on the New Web 2.0 IPOs

Here’s a reality check: Groupon lost $456.3 million in 2010. It lost $146.5 million in Q1 2011. Sounds like a winner, huh?

…

Groupon has all the classic hallmarks of the 90′s era dot-com failure. Big new idea: check. Media hype: check. “Too good to be true” come-on to consumers: check. Endless need to expand into new markets/acquire new customers or perish: check. One-trick pony: check.

Read the full article here.‘Hot’ Doesn’t Equal ‘Profitable’ | ClickZ.

And for some really good meaty bits, be sure to read the “new lessons to learn if we want to avoid the mistakes of the past” at the end of the article. I’m shocked at how many people never learned these lessons.

Money / Publishing / Technology — No Comments
12
May 11

Apple’s Mid-Stream Policy Changes Kill a Successful Business

So iFlow Reader is being forced to end their app due to Apple’s policies requiring in-App purchases. Two key quotes from them that are definitely worth reading:

All you have to do is put the book in In-App Purchase. Sounds so reasonable, doesn’t it? But do you know how you do that? You go onto iTunes Connect, OK? And then you press some buttons and you get to a page that lets you create a new In-App Purchase item. You sit there and type in all the information, this description of the product and whatnot so Apple can presumably use that description to decide whether to approve it or not. There is no way to bulk load this. You can’t just copy your database in there. You have to do this all manually. We have access to 250,000 titles, not counting public-domain titles. We’re supposed to enter them all in manually?

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What people don’t understand is that if you’re selling an app on iOS, Apple hosts that app on their server. You upload it, the customer downloads it, it gets downloaded from their servers. OK. With In-App Purchase it doesn’t work that way. You host everything. You ship it directly to the customer. All Apple does in the process is collect the money and basically give you a token that says it was collected and you do everything else. It’s essentially doing exactly the same thing as a credit-card processing company for this 30 percent. Nothing more.

Life / Technology — No Comments
27
Apr 11

It Turns Out You CAN Use Exchange on a Xoom

Well, for the last week I’ve been using Outlook Web Access to check work email on my new Xoom. Couldn’t figure out anything inside of the GMail app that was on my home screen about how to add an exchange server.  It turns out there’s a separate e-mail app for that and I just had to set it up in the settings.

Here’s how to get there. Follow the link at the end to visit Motorola’s site for full instructions.

Add an email account

1. From the home screen, touch Apps
2. Touch Settings
3. Touch Accounts & Sync
4. Touch + Add account (upper right hand corner)
5. Touch Corporate

via Motorola XOOM – Set up Corporate/Exchange E-mail.

Technology — No Comments
21
Apr 11

Spy Photo: Musicnotes on Android

Here’s a super-secret photo of the upcoming Musicnotes.com Android app. Development is coming along very nicely so far. Still a few months out, but with the technology that this is being programmed in (and due to less restrictions than Apple has), this is going to be a very cool app. Dare I say, cooler than our iPad app.

In related news, I picked up a Xoom tablet for myself over the weekend. Needs more apps, but actually am really digging it. Since the wife has the iPad with her and she’s on vacation, I’m forced to use my new Xoom and after a few days I’ve really gotten attached to it.  But like I said, people seriously need to start developing more apps for Android.

Intellectual Property / Music / Technology — No Comments
6
Apr 11

Grooveshark Pulled from Android Marketplace

Grooveshark is gone from the Android Market. The popular music streaming service was removed from the Market yesterday because it violates Google’s terms of service. The exact terms were not revealed, but CNET notes that Grooveshark’s ongoing dispute with record companies over music streaming – and Google lawyer Kent Walker testifying before the U.S. House Judiciary committee on copyright violations – may have had something to do with Grooveshark’s removal.

via Androinica » Grooveshark gets ganked from Google Android Market. Should Amazon Cloud be nervous?.

So here’s my question: Does this even matter? Since the Android Marketplace is not the only place you can get apps for an Android device, this may make little or no difference in the long term. In fact, from my experience so far, the Amazon App Store is a superior experience to the Google Android Marketplace.  Obviously Amazon can sell / give away their cloud player app through their own marketplace, right?

Either way, what happens to Grooveshark is of little bother to me. They’ve been notorious for breaking copyright – as I explained in my book, Starving the Artist.

Intellectual Property / Music / Technology / Web — No Comments
3
Apr 11

Music Industry to Force Licenses for Amazon’s Cloud Music?

As anyone who knows me can attest, I am a huge proponent of intellectual property rights. This, however, gives me some pause.

It appears that the major music labels are upset with Amazon for not securing licenses for their cloud music player system. I honestly don’t really understand what the issue is here – it’s really no different from having a portable hard drive you take with you everywhere you go, is it?

Amazon argues that Cloud Drive and Cloud Player are just services that let users upload and play back their own music, just like “any number of existing media management applications.” After all, licenses shouldn’t be necessary for users to play their own music, right? The labels seem to disagree — they expressed shock following Amazon’s announcement, with a Sony Music representative implying that the company was looking into legal options.

via Music Industry Will Force Licenses on Amazon Cloud Player — or Else | Epicenter | Wired.com.

And by the way, if you’re looking for a cheaper solution that so far isn’t under any scrutiny I’m aware of, check out Winamp Orb. Basically it allows you to make your music collection on your home computer available for you to access anywhere. I’m assuming it is a bit more complicated for casual users than Amazon’s cloud is though.

Technology — No Comments
25
Mar 11

Starz is Joining the Netflix Devaluation through Delay Party

Yesterday news came out that Showtime is pulling Californication and Dexter from Netflix later this year. Now Starz is joining the party of negative news for Netflix fans.

The channel has been one of Netflix’s closest partners, but it backed off a bit from that partnership on Thursday, when it announced a three-month delay between the time Starz plays new TV episodes and when those episodes will be available on Netflix. Starz also said that it would impose a similar delay for movies sometime in the future, though Netflix said any such delay of movies would violate the contract between the two companies.

via Starz to Delay Release of Shows on Netflix – NYTimes.com.

So, not only has Netflix been hit with several 28-day window delays from major studios on new releases on DVD and Blu-Ray over the last year, but now they’re losing some of their most popular content left and right, and getting even more of it delayed even from streaming.

Bad news for Netflix, but even worse news for the consumer probably.

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