[gb] Studio

We Build Web Apps. We Build Brands.

Blog

[+] Open the Meta Bar Tag: internets interestingness. There are 28 posts tagged internets interestingness. Open the Meta Bar to choose a different tag.

Skinny Line

My Week Alone on the Internet


In many ways it’s hard to remember, the but internet didn’t used to be as social as it is now. There was a time, not too long ago, where Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, etc. didn’t exist, or at least had very little traction in our daily lives.

Last week, as I found myself needing to make a final push on some work—in particular, a large update to the very blogging platform this post is published on (more on that later)—I noticed, and became increasingly annoyed with my proclivity toward CRS. What is “CRS”, you ask? It’s what I’ve dubbed Constant-Refresh-Syndrome—and I had it bad.

Skinny Line

Wherever you stand, even if you think that Verizon and Google are not headed down a slippery slope, I still question whether or not they can be trusted with something as crucial as net neutrality. I’m rarely a fan of government regulation, but this is a textbook example of what government regulation is intended to resolve.

If companies always agreed with regulators’ rules, there would be no need for regulators. The very point of a regulator is to do things that companies don’t like, out of concern for the welfare of the market or the consumer.

The Economist, Verizon, Google and the Woody Allen problem

Skinny Line

Skinny Line

On the death of newspapers (a.k.a. journalism) and an informed democracy


I’ll start out by saying this: excuse my ignorance. This is not a topic I’ve studied to any extent or have any sort of professional expertise in. I’m simply making some observations and drawing some conclusions in hopes that someone (maybe you) will respond and enlighten or correct me if necessary.

Every so often I hear the argument that journalism is dying. It usually goes something like this:

  • The newspaper industry is struggling. People are reading less newsprint and the internet is forcing publishers to give news away for free.
  • Network TV (and therefore Network News) is struggling because of the internet and because consumers have too much choice in cable/satellite, and, of course, the internet.
  • Because of these factors and declines in ad revenue tied to readership/viewership, real professional journalism is dying.

Coupled with what I’ll call the “journalism is dying” argument is usually a very grim picture of the future of democracy in our country. That argument usually goes something like this:

  • An informed electorate makes for a healthy democracy
  • A healthy journalism industry leads to an informed democracy.
  • The journalism industry is in decline and therefore democracy is in trouble.

I call bullshit.

Skinny Line

The Great Democratizer


In theory, the Internet is the great democratizer. I can publish or create art as a relative nobody and share it with the world. But in practice, this is an ideal. The internet is not the great democratizer in a final sense, it just provides more opportunities for exposure in the art and creative and intellectual spaces than we’ve ever had before.

The idea that all good work, all good art, all good thoughts always rise to the top is idealistic.

The idea that all good work, all good art, all good thoughts always rise to the top is idealistic. It’s a good ideal, but when this idea is presented as fact, it’s naive. We are limited by time, culture, attention spans, and yes, even still influenced by celebrity/popularity.

So what? Other than my displeasure when ideals get presented as absolutes, I posted this as a reminder to you (and to myself) to do something very simple: support the things you love. Those artists, content producers, projects, non-profits, that you enjoy would love to have their stuff introduced to one new person that’s never been exposed to it before today.

Skinny Line

We Need A Payment Revolution

The future of web commerce is being held back by the current state of payment systems.


As is my morning habit, I’m writing this while sitting in my favorite local coffee shop in downtown Boulder, sipping Sencha green tea. It’s a typical morning, lots of regulars and a few newbies, but the biggest change is a new policy in the shop: a $5 minimum on credit card purchases.

They’ve run their numbers and found that it would be less costly to take cash, up-sell customers, or even potentially turn a customer away than to run a credit card for under $5.

They’ve run their numbers and found that it would be less costly to take cash, up-sell customers, or even potentially turn a customer away than to run a credit card for under $5. Why? Because of the merchant fees associated with processing credit cards.

In 2008, the most recent number I could find, a subset of these fees (the interchange fee) added up to $48 billion dollars in the United States alone. That doesn’t include all of the other merchant account fees that can vary widely depending on your merchant agreement.

To me, that’s an astounding number that business owners (and, ultimately, consumers) are paying. And, with regard to internet sales, here’s the catch: you can’t take cash over a website. There is no option B.

Skinny Line

I’m with Frank. I’d rather pay for a service I like and know that it will be around for a while, rather than invest in the VC flavor of the month, only to be left hanging later.

I get worried when I can’t pay for things. Maybe I’m in the minority here and you can dismissively shake your head at me. But, how do you plan on monetizing all of these internet ventures? Not everything is about monetizing, but if you’re running a business or creating or supporting a product, I suppose it is. Will you evaporate after the venture capital is gone? Will I be left high and dry?

Frank Chimero, Let Me Pay. Let Me Tip.

Skinny Line

Skinny Line

The New Carbonmade(.com)


  • Fact 1: Unicorns make it better.
  • Fact 2: Dave Gorum is good at making the internet.

I did a stint at the beginning of the year helping out the amazing Carbonmade guys (and have another one coming up shortly). It was fun to watch Dave cook up their new marketing site as I was working on other stuff. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you owe it to yourself to take a look. Carbonmade is a web app that serves up online portfolios for its users, but the site is wonderfully unlike every other web app site out there, and that’s kind of the point.

Skinny Line

And, from her followup Paying For It:

“We should be helping our clients ignore the hype, focus on those parts of the model that make sense for them, and make smart choices about integrating paid delivery channels into their immediate and long-term plans.”

Both articles (and the articles they link to) are excellent if you’re at all interested in publishing and content delivery models.

(via Jeffrey Zeldman)

Online publishing also requires resources: planning, big doses of both creativity and disciplined analysis, writing, editing, design, project management, production, ad sales, and so on. It doesn’t usually require a separate person for each of those tasks, but it still tends to be a lot of work—more than most readers and clients tend to imagine.

Erin Kissane, Content is Expensive

Skinny Line

Skinny Line

The Carbonmade guys are smart and building an amazing service people love to use, which is why I’ve enjoyed working with them. It’s fun to work with people who care about their users and love what they’re building.

If we’re building something that’s fun and makes us want to spend lots and lots of time working on it for Carbonmade then we think other people will use it. We don’t like boring.

Spencer Fry, The Startup Story of Carbonmade

Skinny Line

Skinny Line

Gotta say, I’m not surprised at all. You can’t have it both ways Viacom.

Side-note: Maybe it’s just me, but this is the first time I’ve heard the DMCA invoked by name as a protectionary measure for sites like YouTube. I feel like it usually comes hand-in-hand with one of the fairly unreasonable take-down notices that companies like Viacom like to flippantly throw around.

Viacom’s efforts to disguise its promotional use of YouTube worked so well that even its own employees could not keep track of everything it was posting or leaving up on the site. As a result, on countless occasions Viacom demanded the removal of clips that it had uploaded to YouTube, only to return later to sheepishly ask for their reinstatement. In fact, some of the very clips that Viacom is suing us over were actually uploaded by Viacom itself.

Zahavah Levine, Broadcast Yourself

Skinny Line

Skinny Line

The State of The Internet

by JESS3


As always, I’m a sucker for good info-graphics and good motion-graphics. Put the two together and you’ve really got me.

You have to watch this a couple times to really internalize some of the numbers. In particular, Facebook’s overall dominance is simply staggering.

(via @micah)

Skinny Line

It took a pretty big fiasco, but as the Ars Technica notes, this is the first time Microsoft has very clearly suggested users move away from IE6 because of a specific flaw. Now if they would all just heed that advice…

It’s a step forward, but then: two steps back. “I’m not aware that the vulnerability exists in other [non-IE browsers]… But those products may have other vulnerabilities.” Sigh.

That’s like saying: “I know smoking can cause cancer, but you might get cancer from something else, so you might as well smoke.”

(via @elliothere)

As you can see, the client configuration currently at risk is Windows XP running IE6," the blog post reads. "We recommend users of IE6 on Windows XP upgrade to a new version of Internet Explorer and/or enable DEP. Users of other platforms are at reduced risk. We also recommend users of Windows XP upgrade to newer versions of Windows.

Microsoft, After Google hack, Microsoft asks users to abandon IE6, XP

Skinny Line

Skinny Line

Counter-point.

Fantasy world is thinking that everyone has the ability and the access, the know how or even the desire to upgrade their browser.

Noah Stokes, Fantasy World

Skinny Line

Skinny Line

Point.

If you’re one of those people who is hiding behind the outdated notion that web sites should look, or be experienced, exactly the same in every browser, you are in for a nasty shock. The real question is not should web sites look the same in every browser but can they? The answer is no. Live with that, move on.

If you are one of those people who is waiting until using progressive CSS is safe because all major browsers support the same CSS at the same time, you’re living in a fantasy world.

Andy Clarke, You’re living in a fantasy world

Skinny Line

Skinny Line

A Twitter Prediction. Lamenting Change.

on the Future of the service.


I’ll say this up front: I sincerely (and selfishly) wish I had written and posted this months ago. I posed the following argument to a friend not long after I had become hooked on Twitter, and frankly, had I written about it then, I would’ve looked like a genius at the outset of the fix replies debacle. Instead, you’ll have to take my argument for what it may (or may not) be worth now:

Twitter will feature-add itself out of existence.

Huh? Let me explain: Twitter is brilliant because of its simplicity and the way it lends itself to being an open and public messaging/broadcasting platform. These basic tenents are what differentiated it and helped it become what it is today among a host of other more “traditional” social network sites.

I would go so far as to say that the ultimate genius of Twitter is its lack of features.

I would go so far as to say that the ultimate genius of Twitter is its lack of features. There are no groups, there are no sub-sets or tiers of users. No special treatment. Up until Twitter “fixed confusing replies” (as they originally put it), everyone saw what everyone else wrote (unless they chose not to). You are valuable to people on Twitter if they listen to you and find value in what you say. On some level, Twitter stumbled into what it is today. It would be hard to come up with a more simple structure for a social network if you tried. Simplicity is the genius of Twitter. But there is a problem…

Skinny Line

Here’s the deal: until network providers no longer think of themselves as content providers there will be a conflict of interest in the way they do business.

A network provider has a vested interest in expanding and increasing the quality of their network. A content provider has a vested interest in the status quo and not allowing new business that might threaten its own revenue streams.

So all those cool data applications Apple and AT&T tout for the iPhone or other smartphones sold by the operator? Just remember they exist only at the behest of the carrier; if they threaten to expose its network’s shortcomings, they’ll get blocked.

Carlo Longino, AT&T Says Its Network Can’t Keep Up…

Skinny Line

Skinny Line

A glimpse into the future.

Been there, done that. And no, the studios don’t get it yet.

A great read.

Okay, so this is today’s reality. You’re paying somewhere between $25 and $75 for your broadband Internet connection. And another $45 to $110 for your television cable access… What if you could just stream those TV shows from the Web on your flat panel, any old TV. You could cancel your TV cable and save real money.

Lefsetz Letter, Boxee

Skinny Line

Skinny Line

Let’s be realistic…

Here’s the one thing that’s always bugged me on some level about the “support IE6” argument: Why is there an expectation that everyone will eventually upgrade?

Why isn’t support for old browsers (any old browser, regardless of market-share), an extra line-item on everyone’s invoices by default?

Still far too high a percentage and enough to make you grown [sic]. Also, the last few pounds are the hardest to lose…

Maybe IE 8, Windows 7, and the great new browser war will help, or maybe some percentage is for lost computer souls.

Dion Almaer, I won’t support IE 6 in 2009

Skinny Line

Skinny Line

Uproar in Australia Over Plan to Block Web Sites

Keep the government out of my tubes.


“Communications Minister Stephen Conroy proposed the filter earlier this year, following up on a promise of the year-old Labor Party government to make the Internet cleaner and safer.”

Just an FYI. Not even that great of an article, and I’m not sure it will even pass. But I think it’s good to occasionally sound the warning bell.

Some semblance of censorship is coming to the internet near you (ISP-based, gov-based, or even volunteer). It will start “for the greater good” (i.e., to rid the world of child pornography). But follow it out. Imagine a world where you need a license from your government (and all other countries you want to be exposed to) to sell online, or to start the next ebay, or Google, or Twitter. No license? You don’t get added to the filter’s white-list. I know, you probably think I’m crazy. I sure hope I am.

Skinny Line

TV has license to kill movies at iTunes, Netflix

They just don’t get it.


There have been some rumblings lately regarding the disappearance of some movies (and tv shows) from Netflix streaming and the iTunes store. This article tells us that the culprit is mostly TV licensing deals.

The part that caught my attention is the defense by the film/tv studios: they’re not willing to kill (or even just modify) an existing business model to help out a new one (the internet).

I think they’re missing something critical. I think there is a leapfrog event happening. I skipped right over things like Tivo or on-demand cable (one of the ways a license deal can get something pulled from the net) and I generally no longer watch any form of on-air tv: cable, antenna, satellite or otherwise. If tv/film wants to reach me, it has to be through the internet. And I know I’m not alone.

The insistence of the industry to adhere to their old business models could get to the point that they miss out on an entire segment of their potential audience. A segment that is growing.

Skinny Line

Contact & Miscellanea

Send mail (and big checks, if you’re so inclined) to:

PO Box 7919
Boulder, CO 80306

Email:

Add the studio on Twitter (we’re friendly)

Visit the main site (includes pretty pictures!)
Stalk Follow me (Grant) on Twitter

If you’re a client, login here