Beta-think (and ending malaria)
The organizers of the End Malaria campaign are putting on one more push to sell the book they organized (at least $20 from every sale goes to buying nets) and so they suggested that the contributors post their essays as enticement that you’ll want to read more like (or better than) this. Here’s my contribution...
New Skype for Mac Beta features Facebook integration
Skype released a new beta for Mac users on Thursday, which features Facebook integration. You can now chat directly with your Facebook friends, check your news feed and update your status. But it comes at a cost: This beta also introduces ads for nonpaying Skype users.
Beta-think and ending malaria
Amazon, Seth Godin’s Domino, and other good folks collaborated to come out with a book of essays whose proceeds go to buy mosquito nets to end malaria. My essay for End Malaria Day is actually the topic of the next book I was going to do until I got all hopped up on publicness and...
Finally! Google’s Chrome App Store Coming Next Week
Still waiting to see that Google Chrome app store? Circle next Tuesday on your calendar: People familiar with the company's plans tell me Google will open up the store--at least a bit--on December 7.
Pay for Web TV? No Problem! Hulu Plus "Exceeding Expectations"
CEO Jason Kilar says he's found plenty of takers for his premium service. But why pay Hulu at all, when you can get it for free on your PC? It's a core question for the service and for Web video in general.
Like Movies, Only Shorter: Movieclips Rounds Up More Cash
Here's an interesting niche video play: Movieclips, a site that does exactly what it sounds like. Why head there instead of Hulu and YouTube? It's a $3 million question.
How to Find the Google Chrome App Store: Wait Till December
You probably don't care, anyway. But some developers, particularly content companies that want to sell their stuff somewhere beyond Apple's iTunes, are interested in the store, which Google previewed back in May.
Editing your customers
“Almost everything you see in Twitter today was invented by our users,” its creator, Jack Dorsey, said in this video (found via his investor, Fred Wilson). RT, #, @, & $ were conventions created by users that were then—sometimes reluctantly—embraced by Twitter, to Twitter’s benefit. Dorsey said it is the role of a company to...
Privacy, publicness & penises
Here is video of the talk I gave at re:publica 2010 in Berlin on The German Paradox: Privacy, publicness, and penises. (Don’t be frightened by the first moments in German; it’s just an introduction and a joke — with fire extinguisher — about how I had threatened to Hendrix my iPad on the stage in...
iPad danger: app v. web, consumer v. creator
I tweeted earlier that after having slept with her (Ms. iPad), I woke up with morning-after regrets. She’s sweet and pretty but shallow and vapid.
Cute line, appropriate for retweets. But as my hangover settles in, I realize that there’s something much more basic and profound that worries me about the iPad — and not just...
