Links of the Week – April 6th
Everybody loves links, so here are my links of the week. As usual, newer links are on top.
New Windows ad hits a nerve (again)
Money Quote: Microsoft has launched another of its new Windows “Laptop Hunters” ads this weekend. While bloggers and journalists are spending lots of cycles dissecting everything from what the salesclerks are wearing to whether or not the “star” is an actor, the one thing I can’t help but notice is how crazy the new commercials are making many in the Apple community.
Me: Do I sense a bit of insecurity among the Apple fanboy ranks?
Can you have an Open Cloud Manifesto without Amazon, Google, Salesforce and Microsoft?
Money Quote: IBM and other players on Monday will launch its Open Cloud Manifesto, a call to make cloud computing “open as all other IT technologies.” But the list of companies that didn’t sign on to the manifesto is telling. Amazon, Microsoft and Salesforce never signed on. Google was on a preliminary list of companies that signed on with the manifesto, but dropped off the final list.
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If roles were reversed and IBM had a fledgling cloud OS—say based on Tivoli—would Big Blue have signed off on its own manifesto this early in the game?
Money Quote: Comment from Angel Lim – “It sounds like the impression they have of bloggers is either that we are no-lifers who have nothing on their schedule.”
Chinese Social Networks ‘Virtually’ Out-Earn Facebook And MySpace: A Market Analysis
Me: A very good read from TechCrunch. It’s not a big secret, but whoever can “win” China will will the next two decades. On a side note, TechCrunch should run more meatier articles like this one instead of articles that falsely proclaim that Google is in “late stage” talks to acquire Twitter.
Money Quote: It’s really horrifying the number of obese people in many parts of the States — it’s time to get organized and go on a diet, America. Also, notice that 10 of the top 10 fat States are a who’s who of the Confederacy — any ideas why that is?
Shopaholic-Generated Content on Shoplette
Me: Good to see more coverage of Shoplette, which was founded by one of my childhood friends, Shannon Low. BTW, he’s super smart and the closest equivalent of a modern-day renaissance man that you could find.
Piracy Has Become Mainstream, Studies Show
Me: Is anyone really surprised? Ubiquitous broadband + easy access + good p2p technology = mainstream piracy. If the definition of “mainstream” is over 50%, try to randomly poll ten of your friends and see if more than half of them download stuff from the Internet.
Friends versus Followers: Twitter’s elegant design for grouping contacts
Money Quote: Ultimately, both approaches have their advantages – the two-way friending model is better at supporting strictly real-life relationships. That ability has obviously led MySpace and Facebook to conquer a lot of real estate and build eyeballs. At the same time, this model requires them to design around the complexity introduced by celebrities, brands, and companies, which are all important folks to have in your ecosystem for long-term monetization as well as mass appeal.
Analysis: Which URL Shortening Service Should You Use?
Me: Interesting article I came across the other day as I was doing research on URL shortening services to support for my Preview and Launch URL accelerator for Internet Explorer 8. Check it out! Both the article and the accelerator…
I.B.M. Reportedly Will Buy Rival Sun for $7 Billion – NYTimes.com
Me: Like my friend Fat Guppy told me the other day, the price tag is reasonable, but there will be a bloody massacre at Santa Clara…
Hulu tries HTML encoding trick to protect streaming content – Ars Technica
Money Quote: Content appearing on TV streaming site Hulu appears to have encoded HTML characters that are decoded on the client side in an attempt to thwart third-party software from scraping the TV shows outside of a browser. One developer has already worked around the “fix,” however, showing that Hulu might want to focus its efforts on improving its business model rather than trying to outsmart hackers.
Economy Takes the Controls From Some Video-Game Pros – NYTimes.com
Me: I never understood why folks would follow “professional” gamers like other professional sports. To me, the barrier to entry for professional gaming is so much lower than say to become a basketball player in the NBA. Therefore, I’m not at all surprised that the recession has caused this min-bubble to burst. I’m even doubtful that in good times, sponsors will have a tough time justifying their ROI on their sponsorships for professional gamers.
Harvard P2P lawyer: file-swapping is fair use—no, really! – Ars Technica
Money Quote: Not content to argue that massive damage awards against P2P file-swappers are unconstitutionally severe, Harvard Law professor Charlie Nesson claims that file-swapping is actually a “fair use” of copyrighted works. Unfortunately, his own expert witnesses don’t agree.
Dan Fernandez’s Blog : TwitterDrive – Tweets are the next evolution in message protocols
Me: Hilarious April Fools’ entry. I would love to try out the TwitterDrive with its 5 Kb/min data transfer rates.
How did Claudia do it? Blogging on the go, LIVE!
Me: I always find it interesting to find out how other people organize their personal information flow. Want to know how super-blogger Claudia manages her 42 different blogs and data dissemination channels? If so, you have to read this.
When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Gets Going “Green”
Me: Thoughtful article written by Jasmine. I can resonate with that, since in this day and age of cutting costs and particularly marketing budgets, what better way to stay effective than to reuse and recycle your old assets?
Money Quote: As marketers, we’re constantly chasing new technologies, churning out new campaigns, new landing pages, new communications, new leads, etc. While it’s good we challenge ourselves with new ideas and new methods, we often leave behind some old hidden treasures. We forget about the successful past campaigns we ran or that popular white paper we’ve created months ago, which could be reused, recycled and repurposed for current use.
Thinking Out Cloud: The Open Cloud Manifesto: Much Ado About Nothing
Me: I have read the Open Cloud Manifesto, and I agree with the author that at this point it’s really much ado about nothing. And it’s pretty telling that none of the big industry cloud vendors, like Google, Amazon, Salesforce.com, and Microsoft have signed on to this.
Breaking: Internet Explorer 8.1 Eagle Eyes Leaked | How-To | Smashing Magazine
Me: April Fools’ joke from Smashing Magazine on Internet Explorer 8. You know it’s a good April Fools joke when you only realize that it’s a joke after finishing about 75% of the article. Server-side code decompiler? That is one feature I would love!
Me: Yet another hilarious April Fools’ this year from Google. For a complete list of Google April Fools’ hoaxes over the years, check out this list.
TG Daily – Review: IE8 is no speed demon, but is most secure browser available
Money Quote: On several occasions, we have expressed doubts over Microsoft’s ability to battle Mozilla, Apple and Opera in terms of features. And today’s release of the much anticipated IE8 came as a pleasant surprise. Not only did the software maker reaffirm IE’s lead in privacy and security features, but IE8 has also zoomed past rivals in features previously claimed by other browsers.
Money Quote: The social media landscape is changing at a consistent fast pace. I’m not here to tell you how to use social media, that’s largely dependent on your objectives, weather it’s for personal, professional or for both. I’m just wondering in the big scheme of things if social media has lost its enamor for most. Because the picture i’m seeing is completely different than the picture I saw just a year ago. Social media is still in its infancy, but it’s hard to get a good picture of where it’s really going from this stage. Once the spammers and list builders discover that they are wasting their time, and once the corporations fully stake their claim, what are we going to be left with? I’m optimistic and yet a little disheartened about the current state of social media that we are in.
Other ways of getting my links in real time: Twitter, Google Reader, Delicious or FriendFeed.
I may leave out certain links from my feed if I feel the stories have already been covered ad nauseam this week.
south korea has a buttload of pro gamers that no normal joe can penetrate even if they practice everyday. saw this evolve within the starcraft universe and the US tried to copy as much as they can with no success.
you’ll find it funny that in the SC scene (not necasarilly in SK) they call players from the rest of the world foreigners.
Interesting.
I would actually be curious to know whether the South Korea pro-gaming scene has been negatively affected by the recession just like the rest of the world.