Life in the Long Tail

About This Site

I am Some Random Nerd. I work in "Digital Media", and this is where I play with it. Call it a personal home page, blog, realtime lifestream or whatever the buzzword of the moment is. It just is what it is, so please enjoy your visit.

Thoughts and theories are my own (other than where quoted) and are personal rather than professional.

A nod to Daring Fireball

Posted Tue 2 Feb 2010

One of my favourite blogs is John Gruber's Daring Fireball.

Right now, in the middle of Apple season, when the rumour, guesses and speculation have turned into reactions and informed opinions (but still mainly from people who haven't ever seen, held or used the actual object they are talking about), his site is the first one I turn to for an informed and educated view of what's going on before I try to put together my own views. Not just for his own thoughts, but as a signpost to others' views that are worth reading.

I read a lot of stuff online, from personal blogs to professional websites, but looking through at the stuff that inspires me to write or post something myself, I notice that a lot of it comes from Daring Fireball.

This is a snippet- read the full post.

The edges of the networks

Posted Tue 26 Jan 2010

Sometimes, you can take a great and insightful idea or discovery and distil it to it's simplest form, and it tells a great story. Other times, in distilling it down to a simple form (often a newspaper headline), it becomes something different.

A story that's currently going through the "report, recycle, repeat" process of what we call "news" is the story about how your brain can't handle all your Facebook friends; any more than 150 "friends" is just a meaningless figure, because our brains can't handle that many.

That's the short version of the story: OMG: Brains can't handle our Facebook friends.

A slightly longer version (less headline-friendly) would explain that Robin Dunbar came up with a theory some years ago, based on observations of social units of primates and the relationship between the size of the social groups and a particular area of the brain, concluding that the human brain is suited to groups no bigger than 150 people. Later this year, he plans to publish the results of some newer research which will show that social networks like Facebook don't affect this number; even if you have 1,500 friends, an analysis of traffic shows that you maintain the same inner circle of about 150 people.

Two big questions come to my mind about those findings. Firstly, how does something like Facebook change those relationships? My own Facebook friends who post regular updates get more of my attention, and I know more about what's happening in their lives than those who post less frequently. Some who post incessantly will get ignored or even "defriended." Then there are the friends who either aren't using Facebook, or aren't very active— who miss updates, event invitations and other activity that's happening on the site. I simply can't believe that Facebook hasn't changed the way that friendships— even within those inner circles of 150— are functioning.

But a different spin on the same story (and I think a more interesting one) is that the fact that our brains "can't handle it" is the point.

This is a snippet- read the full post.

>>★ Apple, Adobe, and Flash

Posted Mon 25 Jan 2010

Gruber's take on the Apple/Flash situation.

I'm not a Flash fan either. Partly the proprietary thing, partly the way that it hogs resources. Partly the way it's abused by online advertising, partly the way it's abused by designers to do things that can be done perfectly well using web standards (which should get more interesting with HTML5...)

I suppose the main point I'd add to Gruber's post is that Apple's history shows that, given the choice between doing something mediocre and not doing it, they just don't do it. Which is why I'm not expecting to see Flash appear on a "closed" Apple platform like the iPhone any time soon. After this long, the appearance would be worth of an announcement, and Apple aren't going to announce something that's not just "not great", but would be best described with adjectives like "buggy", "juddery", "slow" or "unusable" (which describe Flash implementations on other mobile platforms.)

Link to original article

Everything else is advertising

Posted Thu 21 Jan 2010

It's Apple season again. The time when the technology world is ablaze with rumours, speculation and predictions about the Next Big Thing that Apple are about to unveil next week. By now, everyone has written up their thoughts on what it will be, how it will work, how it will cope without a keyboard, what it will be great for, or not so great for. (I'm no exception.)

So we're already starting to see the "I'm bored of Tablet talk" posts. And it's going to get a lot worse over the next couple of weeks. We've got the increasing amount of speculation, the "Apple are about to announce…" stories, and the "Today, Apple unveiled…" stories.

Afterwards, we'll have a round of "it's incredible, and I can't wait", along with a dose of "so what— my [insert manufacturer] device can do that already", and a fair amount of "this isn't the Second Coming— I'm disappointed and let down" from people who confused the rumours and guesses of the last month or two with actual Apple announcements.

This is a snippet- read the full post.

>>Everything you need to know about Windows Mobile 7

Posted Tue 19 Jan 2010

Apparently Microsoft are going for a total refresh of the Windows Mobile platform with Windows Mobile 7— meaning developers who have worked on the Windows Mobile platform will have to rebuild their applications from scratch.

I don't think it's a bad idea to unite Microsoft's mobile offerings (Windows Mobile and Zune are completely seperate at the moment), but it might be a bit late in the game now…

Link to original article

Unwritten rules of privacy

Posted Wed 13 Jan 2010

One of the reasons I put my own website together was a kind of reaction to Facebook. I figured that if I was going to have all my "stuff" online collected in one place, I'd rather it was in my own place than someone else's, and I knew enough about website design to be able to do it myself.

There has been a lot of fuss about Facebook's privacy changes at the end of last year. Without going into all the details, they declared that they were making it easier for people to control their privacy and the way they shared things and were encouraging people to review their settings, but looking into what they were doing (rather than what they were saying) it was pretty clear that what it was really about was trying to get more people to make more of their "stuff" public.

One of the changes that was made is that users no longer have control over who can see their "friends" lists, and some other settings (if they hadn't already been set) would default to being public.

To me, this is breaking the unwritten rules, or the "social contract" that they have with their users. I'm sure that there's nothing illegal about the changes (after all, those lengthy terms and conditions that you click through without reading aren't there to protect the users.) But it seems to me that there's an ethical violation that's taken place.

But does it really matter? If you haven't changed your privacy settings in the first place, then should you care if the default changes?

This is a snippet- read the full post.

My poster has it covered

Posted Wed 13 Jan 2010

Since reading the fifth HHGTTG book (where Arthur Dent becomes The Sandwich Maker), I genuinely worry what use I would be to a society that doesn't have the internet, computers, technology, science-fiction culture, and all the other stuff that I've grown up with, know, love, and completely take for granted. (Only occasionally, mind you— but genuinely.)

Having a degree level education in Chemistry is all well and good, so long as you have a fully stocked laboratory and would like me to run some experiments, but I'm not so sure what I'd be able to do with it if I was stuck in a thousand year old culture. Other than maybe baffle them with stories about atomic science, quantum and relativity which I'm not entirely sure I understand myself.

Luckily, when I do find myself with a time machine, I've now got the first thing I'll want to put in it.

(Now I just need to figure out how I'd get to Greenland...)

pense-bete-futur.jpg

(From here, via Bobulate

This is a snippet- read the full post.

>>Boy Genius: ‘Apple’s Tablet Is an “iPhone on Steroids”’

Posted Wed 13 Jan 2010

The idea that the iPhone— a device that, after three years is still setting the benchmark for "smartphones"— is just a little version of the Tablet may or may not have some truth to it. But it's a hell of a story.

Link to original article

2010: The Year of the Tablet

Posted Wed 6 Jan 2010

While the great debate around digital media content in 2010 revolves around paywalls and paid content versus a world of free, freemium and ad supported content, one thing that both Rupert Murdoch and Google's Eric Schmidt seem to agree on is that in their different visions of the future, the kind of device that people will be consuming their online content on will be a tablet. And the more general expectation is that the most significant tablet device will be the one that Apple are expected to unveil this year (presumably on Wednesday 27th January..)

John Gruber has posted his thoughts on Apple's Tablet- pretty much all of which I agree with, in terms of what I expect the device will be. What I'm not so sure I agree with (and I'm slightly uncomfortable about disagreeing with someone as smart as Gruber) is the way people will use it.

Do I think The Tablet is an e-reader? A video player? A web browser? A document viewer? It’s not a matter of or but rather and. I say it is all of these things. It’s a computer.

And so in answer to my central question, regarding why buy The Tablet if you already have an iPhone and a MacBook, my best guess is that ultimately, The Tablet is something you’ll buy instead of a MacBook.

I say they’re swinging big — redefining the experience of personal computing.

For "personal computing", I think the age of the desktop machine is coming to a close. But by "personal computing", I don't mean using the PC-type machine that (I think) Gruber is talking about here. I mean the machine that you do personal computing with. Web browsing, email, social networking, shopping, music, video—the kind of things that a boss might not want their staff to be doing in their work time when they are supposed to be writing documents, working on spreadsheets and presentations and so on.

This is a snippet- read the full post.

>>You don't have the power

Posted Sat 19 Dec 2009

Good post about the power (or lack of) of publishers in the face of the digital distribution model.

Particularly the closing point- when printers move from putting ink on paper and to building plastic 3d objects, the current "digital revolution" is going to look like a tiny blip in comparison. It will happen- the only questions are how long it will take for 3D printers to become affordable to shops, then homes, and how many businesses will be ready for the change.

Link to original article

>>Apps: The future of mobile?

Posted Fri 18 Dec 2009

I'm glad that the conclusion of this was that the mobile web is more important than mobile apps— but slightly disappointed that "mobile web" rather than simply "the web" was the phrase of choice.

Link to original article

>>Behind the music: The future of fan funding

Posted Tue 15 Dec 2009

The idea of fan-supported music is really interesting, because it shows a real shift in the thinking of music as a business, and recognising the shift that the Internet has created in the media world. Instead of thinking of the relationship between artist and listener as a one-way channel (with the record label completely in control of it) and looking at what else the artist can package and sell, it looks at what can be done to strengthen the relationship between them.

When I was younger, there was a definite kudos to being among the first people to discover a new band. If you could do that, and at the same time be one of the people who directly funded the next singles or albums that propelled them to stardom (and got some kind of exclusive 'token' to prove it) then I reckon you'd be onto a winner. I can even imagine a stock market kind of economy rising up around it- think about owning the original artwork of an album like Nevermind, Definitely Maybe or the Arctic Monkeys' debut before they broke the artist through to superstardom.

I find that any idea that comes out of recognising the simple fact that the Internet is the first ever global 2-way communications platform tends to be a good one.

Link to original article

Star Wars shoes

Posted Tue 15 Dec 2009

When he started licensing toys for the characters and vehicles in the Star Wars universe, I don't think George Lucas really knew what he was starting. But I think some of the more recent Star Wars merchandising has shown that cross-licensing can be done well. I'm a big fan of the Star Wars lego toys, and the spin off computer games were great fun. (Although it's strange to think of a licensed computer game from a licensed toy from the films...)

But this latest range of Star Wars stuff from Adidas is something else. It would be pretty easy to just stick a Star Wars logo or Darth Maul's face on a cheap pair of trainers and expect them to sell to the kind of people who like the idea, but it looks like the Adidas designers have really given a bit of thought to what they were doing. They do have logos, but they are fairly subtle. Instead, they seem to have focussed on trying to catch the feel of Star Wars.

(Click the images to see a larger version.)

I think the X-Wing trainers are my favourites; although they do have "X-Wing" written on the side, it's the texturing that makes me think "Star Wars."

The Falcon ones are kind of similar;

The Skywalker ones are quite clever, matching not just the colours, but the general look of Luke's pilot uniform in the original film.

Maybe not quite as subtle, but the Stormtrooper trainers have also worked in the iconic look of the Stormtrooper helmet into the back of the shoes, along with the clean white texture and the chunkiness of the Adidas stripes.

And of course, Darth Vader makes an appearance, with the different textures of his outfit reproduced in a pair of black trainers.

The only problem is that I can't figure out whether they are for kids or grown ups, so I don't know whether to expect to be able to find a pair in size 11...

You can see the full collection over at StarWars.com. Check out the rest of the shoes there.

This is a snippet- read the full post.

Spotting room for improvement

Posted Fri 11 Dec 2009

This is a simple and brilliant solution to a problem that I've taken for granted so much that I'd forgotten that it was a problem.

As more and more technology works it's way into our lives, homes, pockets and bags, power is a problem, and UK plugs are unnecessarily bulky. If you've ever changed a fuse then you will have seen how little of the space in a plug is actually used.

Years ago, that relatively small waste of space wasn't really an issue, but things are different. In my living room for example, I have a PC, a laptop, a cable TV box, two games consoles (a Playstation 3 and a Nintendo Wii), a stereo, a TV, a modem, a wireless router, a printer, and an iPod/iPhone charger.

Those are all fairly standard items- I've also got some additional kit for an electric guitar, a lamp, a baby monitor, a digital photo frame and a cordless telephone that doesn't work (well, either the phone doesn't work or the phone line has died, but as I don't need it, it isn't worth the bother of finding out where the problem is. But for some reason, if I want Virgin Media's TV and broadband, I have to have a phone line...) Oh, and a charger for an SLR camera battery, and a standard battery charger.

So that's eighteen plugs that need to be connected to the power supply, and sixteen sets of wasted space in each plug. So you need plug boards- which are also bigger than they really need to be (because the plugs that plug into the adapters are bigger than they need to be in the first place.)

This is a snippet- read the full post.

5 Things Rupert Murdoch Probably Doesn't Understand

Posted Fri 20 Nov 2009

You will probably have noticed that over the last few months in the media world, the subject of "free news" has been the subject of a lot of speculation and attention. Since Rupert Murdoch announced that he doesn't believe that "news" content should be available for free, and that he intends to put all News International's online content behind a paywall, his plans have been widely discussed and scrutinised by amateurs and professionals alike.

Although there have been some very good arguments that he doesn't know what he's doing, I've been fairly sceptical about the idea that Murdoch, and as a result I've been holding off from writing something about it. The basic maths seem fairly straightforward; if you can sell less for more then there's obviously a way to balance those numbers in a way that leads to more money coming in. So I'd assumed that Murdoch knew what he was doing; that a media mogul worth $4 billion might understand his business better than some random nerd with a couple of blogs, a twitter account and no business model to speak of. (Let alone a successful multi-billion dollar one.)

But I have been doing a lot of reading around the debate, and after watching part of a recent interview with Fox News (which I came across via Techcrunch) I'm not so sure that Murdoch really does know what he's doing.

Here's the video; (It's a 9 minute video, but the second half is all about China and trade, rather than online content.) Take a look and judge for yourself;

Having watched it, I just can't believe that this man really understands the internet, how the web works, or the way people are using it. Understanding a business that has been very successful is one thing, but understanding the forces that are transforming that business may be something different.

This is a snippet- read the full post.

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