So in summary, both services are fine but not for me.  Clearly Facebook is lacking in the mobile department and Instagram is meant for mobile with no desktop penetration.  Sounds like a good fit to me?  Facebook’s mobile app might turn into something pretty awesome after this.  Instagram are going to have a lot more users in their grasp and probably have a vision where they want to take the company.  Being acquired by Facebook was an offer they could not refuse and it’s shocking to see some of these comments:

BTW, I never used Instagram. I could tell where they were headed.

— Dave Winer ☮ (@davewiner) April 9, 2012

How to delete your Instagram account while saving your photos cnet.co/HvdFHm — CNET (@CNET) April 9, 2012

Here are five alternatives to the now Facebook-owned Instagram wp.me/p1re2-1JFP — VentureBeat (@VentureBeat) April 9, 2012

And finally:

Is anyone actually happy that Instagram got acquired by Facebook? If so, tell me why.

— Cesar Torres (@Urraca) April 9, 2012

 

One of my personal favorites is a story entitled: “Apple should have acquired Instagram” saying:

I would more likely wanted Apple to acquire Instagram. Apple actually needed Instagram much more than Facebook and Google. With a few Apple’s failed attempts to go social(remember Ping), that could actually worked. Instagram has 29M iPhone users. Most of them are very engaged with the application. The combination of Photo Stream + Instagram could be super powerful. I can see myself using it(a lot). Also, by purchasing Instagram Apple could have keept it iOS-only. That would be much appreciated by current iPhone users and for some people might be a reason to switch to iPhone.

Yes, that’s just what we need.  Apple to acquire Instagram, convert it to a pay only app. Charge $2.99 for the iPhone version and $9.99 for the iPad enhanced version. Perhaps throw in a subscription in there someplace for cloud syncing.  Not to mention keep it iOS only because that sounds pretty exclusive and cool.

My brain might explode. . .

Everyone worries about what is collected about them from big companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook.  Back when I first started using the internet, it was a time where you NEVER used your last name for anything.  In fact, few even knew my first name (hello xpose).  The last thing I wanted was someone to know my full name, let alone anything else about me.

Well, times have changed.

Many people use social websites that you sign up for and intentionally post your thoughts, photos, job status, and other personal information.  You think nothing of this, as its the norm nowadays.  Yet you complain when Google bases advertisements or customized search results on your browsing habits.

So what?  What are you afraid of?  What’s the worst thing that can happen?  Are they amasing a database with the entire population in hopes to one day sell your data and steal your identity?  Hardly.  You’re not that important.

Zuckerberg was right when he said the age of privacy is over.

People care, but I don’t think they know why exactly.  I am not giving these companies a pass for collecting data and not telling its users.  What I am saying is that you shouldn’t be surprised.  If you want your information to remain private then stop using these sites. In-fact, unplug your ethernet cable and turn off your wireless.  You aren’t going to find many places to visit that respect your standards on privacy.

As the web gets smarter, your privacy will continue to decrease over time.

But something tells me you won’t.  You’d rather still use these services, complain about their irresponsibility, then check-in to foursquare.

Geeks Force Legal Issues to Forefront

Roll the clock back to around 1997, way before the technological wonders of today’s world.  The mp3 was invented a few years earlier and the distribution of mp3s slowly began underground on places like IRC. (I’m sure elsewhere as well, but that was my primary method)  I never thought mp3s would ever make it to the average user, but boy was I wrong.  We didn’t know it at the time, but music would never be the same again.  At first the music industry was scared of something they did not understand.  Fast forward to today and mp3s outsell physical disc copies.

Also in the late 90s, the DVD was created to consume movies in a digital format.  Soon, a way to circumvent protection schemes on the DVDs, called DeCSS, was created.  Fair Use? Freedom of Speech?  The source code was printed on tvshirts and spread across the internet.  Geeks came in-defense of one of its authors and the internet was actively backing one of its own.

Fast forward a few years to the advent of HD-DVDs and the HD-DVD key fiasco on Digg.  I was a part of that, and we actually got Kevin Rose and Digg to change their stance and it felt pretty remarkable.  I thought this is about as big as it could get by having a voice online.  Boy was I wrong.

The Masses Get Involved

As the internet user base continued to grow, the average user became much more knowledgeable about the internet world around them.  Privacy started to become a key issue online and what is or is not appropriate.  Google had one of their first blunders when it came to Google Buzz and privacy.  Facebook too had their run in with privacy concerns (facebook beacon anyone?) again and again and forced some real change when the FTC got involved.

Average users also influence how websites evolve over time.  Twitter is a great example of this, as the hashtag was invented by one of its users.  Now we can see the hashtag across multiple websites and platforms that are incorporated in various ways.

Conclusion

Never before has an online following or action resulted in a pre-emptive strike against legislation until SOPA happened this month.  The blackout on Jan 18th was a great idea and major players across the internet were leading the charge.  Everyone should be proud of what was accomplished.  My prior examples have had their fair share of change and influence, but this is the first time I think that Congress has actually realized that we have power too.

Continue to be proactive.  Learn about the services you use online and the media you consume.  Learn about how the internet works and appreciate the work and sacrifice geeks did to transform the internet into what it is today.  In 25 years, don’t be surprised if high schools across America make the history of the internet mandatory curriculum.

The internet is our playground. We are its users.

(For more discussion, head over to hacker news)

1. Online retailers are at a disadvantage to traditional stores because of shipping fees.  Local stores usually do not have to worry about these added fees during a purchase.
2. Online retailers sell items tend to be cheaper than local stores.  Part of of the reasons might be that in order to compensate for the time it takes to receive your purchase, the buyer has to be enticed to save a few bucks in the process.  Otherwise, you might as well go to the store, right?
3. Local stores play the game of increasing prices on personal items that consumers NEED to have.  For example, shaving blades.  You either don’t shave for 3 days, or you bite the bullet and buy it in the store even though it costs more.
4. Local stores, such as Best Buy, mark-up prices for HDMI cables to $50+ dollars so uninformed consumers overpay for something that can be bought online for $5 dollars.  You expect me to feel sorry for local chains when they behave like this?  Then they offer extended warranties on TVs that are meaningless?  I don’t think so.
5. And finally, the online sales tax “loophole” as some people have described it, is the ONLY loophole that us common folk can use.  Members of Congress and other big corporations use many tax loopholes so they end up paying less taxes or no taxes than people making $50,000.  These will never be closed because it benefits them.  I smell hypocracy.

   Before you start taxing all online retailers, you might want to look at forcing ALL companies that operate in the United States to pay corporate taxes.  Or should the 99% continue to be screwed over?

Running your own start-up is not easy.  In fact, its insanely frustrating for many reasons. Try telling ‘regular’ people your idea over and over and for it to just go straight over their heads.  Either that or they’ll instantly think its crap because they don’t understand it.  Then they’ll wonder, “seriously, what do you REALLY do for work?”  You get to the point of asking yourself: “Why bother even mentioning it?”.

Worse yet, try pitching your start-up and/or idea to a tech blog.  I recently sent an email to a tech blog explaining what FantasySP does and why its a neat place to go for fantasy sports fanatics.  It really works and it really provides an incredibly useful service.  I even provided my Google Analytics stats.  The response?  ”Nice, just trying to think of an angle…“.  An angle? Are you kidding me?  The angle is that it’s a bootstrapped profitable start-up with loads of cool features.

He doesn’t give a shit that the business is profitable with me working on it 20 hrs a week.  He doesn’t give a shit that I’ve coded a product that people use, to the tune of 700,000 pageviews in September.  Or that I’ve managed to keep costs under $300 per month and make approximately 10X that in revenue.  Or that my start-up outperforms some that have 10+ employees with over a million dollars in funding.  Or that I’ve done it all myself with no prior experience of the business world.  I can go on and on, but none of that matters.

But this is my fault for foolishly not knowing.

What matters is that my start-up needs an angle that they find interesting.  It doesn’t matter if your startup even does what it claims to do or if your profitable.  If I pitched some shitty idea revolving an iPad app and daily deals with facebook integration I bet they’d be at least following up my email with questions.  Why?  Because its on-the-surface buzzword bullshit that attracts them to write and bring in the pageviews.

If you want your product mentioned, then modesty is not going to work.  You have to play their game by overvaluing your product.  Make outrageous claims like its the next Twitter meets Groupon.   Lets look at a start-up like Color.  I mean, why the hell did anyone even write about that shithole of an idea to begin with?  Because Color is a product of arrogant bullshit from people who have been successfull before, and it will outweigh any logical thought or reasoning as to if it might work.

Everything about startup culture is complete bullshit. People would rather believe and write about pompous arrogant assholes who lie through their teeth about their product.  I bet half the time, the things written in articles are BARELY half-truths.  Why else would all of these start-ups go belly up within a few months?

I give people in the start-up world too much credit (which, if you knew me, is actually pretty remarkable).  People only skip across the surface, and I just have to face the facts and move along.  I’m no longer focusing on getting an investor on board, or trying to be mentioned in a tech blog, or trying to be acquired.  If these things happen, great, but I’m not about to waste my time when I could be improving my existing product.

I can’t say this is necessarily a good thing because most people do not agree with many of my opinions and observations.  I often get remarks that I am being “too harsh” or “not giving them a chance” or “being judgmental” or “I don’t know all the facts”.  More often than not, I tend to be right. But why don’t other people see what I see?  I’m not overly smart.  I think I am just wired to think differently, and the reason is because I became a programmer.  Call it the programmers curse.

Here, I’ll show you…

Have to go food shopping?  Go at night, less people means less time to waste.  Shop for clothes?  Wait for a 30-40% off sale, then just get everything at once online with free shipping.  Need a new television?  Well, I’m certainly not just going to get the cheapest one out there.  Time to look at reviews and add a deal alert from Slickdeals and patiently wait.  Time to buy a new console?  Well, which one is easier to mod because I surely don’t see myself spending $60 per game.

Is it hard to be logical? Absolutely.  It’s extremely hard.  In fact, I would argue that its much easier to be illogical than to be logical.  To come to an illogical conclusion requires almost no thought and relies mostly on impulse and emotion.  An illogical person is not looking for the simplest and most effective answer to a problem.  They don’t care if they are right or wrong.  I think more people are illogical rather than logical.  But I don’t blame them; it’s hard.

Think about some of the toughest problems or topics that people seem to fight over.

Politics?  That reeks of illogical people who really don’t care what the truth is.  We have a debt problem.  What’s the most logical decision to fix that? Cut spending and raise taxes?  For who?  The rich? Some argue that the money companies save from tax breaks eventually trickle down to us poor folk. They create jobs. Is their logic flawed?  Are they aware of the wealth breakdown in the United States?  Is it time for a change?  The real facts are out there waiting for you to soak them in.

Religion? Again, this is another area where it seems largely devoid of logic.  Think of the simplest and most effective answer.  Take a step back and learn about human history and the laws of the universe.  Most people won’t end up at the conclusion I come to.

What about technology?  This is a very tough area and there are a lot of illogical loyal users out there.   I’m sorry folks, but I just can’t bring myself to buy a $600 iPad when an iPhone or Android is essentially the same thing.   I am not loyal to a company.  I use a Macbook for work and a PC at home.  They both work well for me.  My web browser? I used to love Firefox, but they fell behind in innovation and features to a 2 year old browser.  Do I stay loyal to Firefox? Hell no, logic dictates I use the fastest and feature rich browser out there.

Relationships are by far the hardest to use logic with.  I don’t even to go into that one do I?  Oh hell, why not?  What I do drives my wife crazy because I can’t just blurt things out or make seemingly simple decisions and move on.  If she does something overtly illogical, I want to try to figure out why she did it.  She will look at me and say: “WOULD YOU STOP THAT? ARE YOU JUDGING ME!”.  I’m not judging. I am analyzing.  I just want to know WHY.  See what I mean?  I can’t help myself.

What about in the business world?  I see people over and over making the wrong decisions. (Surprise surprise right?)  I assume there is logic behind these decisions, but perhaps they are too lazy to REALLY delve into it to fully understand the problem?   Perhaps they are just looking in the wrong place for advice?  The stats are there, so why don’t they listen to them?  I wish I knew.

Again, don’t take this article the wrong way.  I am not saying I am the smartest or the most logical person in the world.  I am not saying everything I wrote in this article is the truth.  There are times when my logic is wrong.  All I am saying is that I try to be as logical as I can be.  But is that the best way to go about things?  You know, when I think about it…sometimes being illogical seems like the logical thing to do.

While that sounds good at first glance, after a closer look all they are doing is cluttering up websites, slowing them down, and ultimately using us to further control the web.  It’s a harsh truth to realize and some people will refuse to believe that social websites are a growing plague on the internet.  There is TOO MUCH voting going on.  With facebook’s release, web developers have NO CHOICE but to add the button.  How could we possibly ignore 400+ million users of possible exposure?

To Facebook this is a big deal to spread their empire, but to me it’s just another friggin button that I need to consider adding.  If you think about it, it’s no different from any of the other buttons!  They all do the same thing.

The tech websites HAVE to cover it because it’s a facebook announcement.  ReadWriteWeb, Arstechnica, TechCrunch have to create their top 5 articles on what “LIKE” means for the web because they can’t ignore the 400lb gorilla.  The seemingly limitless web is being controlled by a select few websites and there is nothing you can do but accept it and try to make the best of it as you can.

I did NOT want to add the facebook button to FantasySP, but I have no choice and neither do you if you want more traffic.  We are at their mercy.

3+ years ago, 98% of the online digital music user base blindly and without question bought music from iTunes with Apple DRM so they could play in only Apple products. Smart business decision by Apple. ::cough:: monopoly, illegal business activities ::cough:: Of course the customers didn’t care because they had no choice. Not only that, but consumers are nothing but stupid, uninformed, lazy sheep.

Other services were out that offered music DRM free. Allofmp3.com was the first commercial music service that was DRM free and you could select the bitrate of your choice. Absolutely brilliant and ahead of its time. Of course they were sued and forced out of business (surprise, surprise). Nevertheless, it showed the way mp3 music is meant to be distributed. I never thought a major retail outlet would ever offer DRM free at reasonable prices.

Then came Amazon.com online music library. When I heard the news that they would be opening an online music library with no DRM at 99 cents a song I was completely amazed. How in the world did Amazon pull that off and get music labels to agree to it? What businessman had the ability to convince music labels this was the wave of the future?

Meanwhile iTunes still had DRM.

Amazon changed the game so much that it FORCED Apple to provide a DRM free alternative to customers, albeit at a cost to the consumer. Prices were over 99 cents for DRM free music on iTunes and no one seemed too outraged about it.

Meanwhile I thought to myself, only a fucking moron would ever buy anything from iTunes. I still believe that and have always thought that. I implore everyone to buy their music from Amazon whenever possible.

While I may have gone off-topic (can you blame me?), I want to come back to my original point of this article. To thank Scott Ambrose Reilly, because to me, he is the person we can thank for DRM free music today.

Much to my surprise they actually praised the show.  TheBigLead apparently loves the new Ben and says:

What a travesty that there are only nine episodes left.

There is no sarcasm here either folks, they were saying that line with a straight face.  It’s absolutely stunning that a character can be villain for 4 seasons, then in the span of 2 or 3 episodes viewers see Ben become a good guy and they think nothing of it.  AMAZING.

I’m not going to waste my time to say all the reasons why Lost was completely ruined into a pile of dogshit.  Suffice it to say that there is not one character on the show who maintained his character through 5 seasons.  I guess when you like a show so much, you ignore all of the negative aspects of it.  Exactly like being a sports fan.  You say things like “your team got unlucky, the refs made bad calls, next year will be our year, Sanchise, etc etc”.

So in the end The Big Lead, you’re  just proving what it’s like to be a typical biased sports fan.

All I ask is that you watch season 1 of Lost again.  Look at the tone of the show and the direction they are going with the characters.  Take note of the eerie feeling you get while watching, what was once a great show. . .LOST.

Typically when you want to buy or download an application for your iTouch or iPhone, you head over to the app store icon and browse around.  Once you find something, click ‘install’ or ‘buy’.  These apps are then placed on the main screen and can be opened whenever you’d like.  While this may sound super easy, it also causes problems.

Apple controls each application that is approved or disapproved.  Sometimes it takes them up to a month to approve an application.  Other times they deny applications because it might infringe on their built in phone features.  Such as the case with the Google Voice app.  However, the biggest problem is the fact that each phone brand needs to have their own framework for applications.  There is the Google Android, the Blackberry, and iPhone which require each application to be developed specifically for that phone.  To make matters even worse, there are rumors that the reason Apple does not have flash support on their phone is because they were afraid developers would use that instead of their SDK to develop applications.   There has to be a better way?

What we need is an open source way to develop applications to work on any mobile phone with a browser.  It turns out we already have that folks, and your using the protocol right now, HTTP.  There are a few developers out there who hate using Apple’s SDK to build an app when creating a mobile site will work just fine. Sean of GetClicky is one of them.  The truth is that websites create applications to work in the browser, then have to recode them to work for each cell phone SDK.  What was built for the web browser, should remain in the web browser!

There are plenty of examples of mobile sites that work across every single cell phone platform.  Why bother spending time learning Apple’s SDK to offer things that can be easily implemented with regular HTML?  Plus HTML5 coming up in the next few years to add an even richer interface experience.  Each cell brand should have their own unique call requests to gain access to the phone’s contact list, dialing, and anything else they might need.  If cell brands are concerned that they won’t make money this way, why not have developers pay to gain access to some areas of the phone?

In the end, the death of all mobile app stores are exactly what we need.