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Category: economics

Counter Culture

Published September 6, 2007 by cgerrish

Vetrazzo counter milefiori

If you’ve ever spent a Sunday looking at real estate open houses, you’ll see the depressing sight of the omnipresent kitchen granite table top. It’s the upscale meme that has spread like a virus. If you don’t know about Vetrazzo, and you’re thinking about new countertops. You need to get out and see this stuff. Vertrazzo is 100% recycled glass, we’re talking old traffic lights, windshields, bottles, etc. Each of the styles has a story about the origin of the glass.

Vetrazzo has created a green business, and that’s great, but it’s the beauty of the product that really matters. Check it out.

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NBC Chooses More Strings, iTunes Needs To Become iSafe

Published September 5, 2007 by cgerrish

They’ve ditched Apple and moved to Amazon’s Unbox. Higher prices, more DRM strings on usage— so NBC got what it wanted.

What Amazon doesn’t have is a simple system for online purchase and usage. That’s why iTunes and the iPod are dominant. They make it easy to purchase and use. Amazon makes it easy to buy stuff in boxes, it’s download service has never caught on. One reason is that most people can’t figure out how to get digital files on to their MP3/Video player. Jon Udell explores this theme in his writings on unexplored software idioms. Something that seems very straightforward to long time computer users can be unfathomable to the average user.

Electronic safe

Jason Calacanis’s Mahalo tries bridge that gap to the user in Search. Apple was able to make synching painless for the average user, and that’s what made digital entertainment through the network possible. Dave Winer thinks that synching sucks, but not because it’s hard. He just doesn’t think things need to be in more than one place. So where’s that online safe where I can keep copies of all the digital media that I’ve purchased? It contains all the music, audio books, podcasts, TV shows & movies, software, online art and photos that I legally own. It’s automatically backed up and I can reach it from all kinds of devices wirelessly through a ubiquitous network. My home stereo, car stereo and iPod all access the same music. A connection is established once, and then you’re all set. iTunes could become this.

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Identity Anchor: Health & Office Apps

Published September 4, 2007 by cgerrish

Identity

Microsoft has tipped its hand, it wants to tie your online identity and authentication credentials to Windows Live. Google has been working the same angle for some time, although they’ve added an interesting twist. Adam Bosworth has been working on Google Health. If Google is holding on to your health history information, why not consolidate all your important secure identity stuff there, add in the ability to pay for things and your savings and investing credentials— and then you’ve suddenly got just about everything. Microsoft is also thinking about health and will make some announcements soon.

If you trust Microsoft or Google with your health care history, why not trust them with your whole online identity? From the health angle, the consumer is reclaiming their data with the ability to assert it in whatever context they choose. But this is a bootstrap to a larger goal. We should keep our eyes open with regard to this— Google and Microsoft have become similar enough that past objections to Hailstorm should still carry some weight. (Despite Google’s desire to “not be evil.”)

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NBC Blinks, Still Clueless

Published September 2, 2007 by cgerrish

dollars

NBC comments on the iTunes contract negotiation. NBC doesn’t seem to understand the ecosystem of the internet. And they clearly don’t understand who downloads shows to watch on iPods and Apple TV. Jeremy Horwitz, of iLounge, does a good job of explaining the situation to NBC.

Apples iTunes allows customers to legally download content for a small fee. Previously, content was downloaded for free. Apparently NBC prefers that we return to the good old days. It’s amazing that, even at this late date, people don’t understand what it means to live in the Age of Digital Reproduction (the Age of Mechanical Reproduction has been surpassed, see Walter Benjamin). The means to reproduce the digital thing are contained in the thing itself. Companies like NBC don’t want anyone to know that. Or better yet, they’d like to change the nature of the digital.

Note to NBC, the time isn’t right yet. Take something rather than nothing. Keep pricing simple, take the money.

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