Monday, May 23, 2005

Analysis: Why Apple and Google should blog.  

Apparently the next version of iTunes will come with a podcatcher built in. I'm accumulating data and links in a post on my podcasting blog. If you have more info, please post a comment or trackback to it. Thanks! 

Steve Gillmor: "On Thursday, Google laid down a 60-day window for offering RSS support in their Fusion operating system/office suite hybrid. On Sunday night Steve Jobs laid down a 60-day window for RSS enclosure support inside iTunes. Today, as the smoke clears from these two cannon blasts across Microsoft’s bow, Bill Gates must surely realize he’s just been upgraded to the RSS revolution. Hoisted on his own petard." 

Via Wonkette: Kara Swisher asks Steve Jobs last night: "Would you have sued if the Wall Street Journal had done this?" Jobs: "We might have. But the WSJ has serious thought behind it. The thing is today is that everyone can be a journalist. We are in a gray area and we are trying to help in some small way." 

Okay John Battelle, get ready -- I'm going to ask you an interesting question, I hope. You say Steve Jobs sucks because he's shutting down three bloggers who are publishing his secrets on the Internet. He feels justified because the courts have backed him up (so far). Okay, fast forward two to three years, when Google is even bigger (they're already worth twice Apple, today). Imagine they have a browser in their quiver now, and it's getting pretty popular. That's a reasonable assumption, right, I mean it could happen? Okay, so Google doesn't like us sharing their secrets, and they're kind of touchy, some of the things they object to don't even seem to us like they're secrets. Well lucky for them, they own the throttle. They can just cut off our air supply. How could they do that. How how how? Well, remember we decided it was okay for them to modify our content way back in 2005. They didn't even have to ask our permission. Not only that, if we said no, they could ignore us. They're just giving the users what they want, and we believed them. But why John is it bad when Steve Jobs goes to court to get permission to modify three bloggers' content, but it's really coooool when Eric Schmidt calls it a feature? I guess the users wanted it, that's the difference. Yeah, they made the trains run on time too.  

Google is at $255 a share, with a market cap of $71 billion. Apple is at $40 per share, with a market cap of $33 billion. One has to adjust one's thinking doesn't one? Jobs looms so large, but his company is relatively small compared to Google.  

Oy I had a meltdown on one of my servers today, all of a sudden Frontier started consuming massive amounts of memory on startup. I mean huge amounts. The system had run out of disk space earlier, so I figured a restart would cure it, but nope -- still the same nasty behavior. I tried reconfiguring virtual memory, no change. So I made a fresh pot of coffee, and started moving sites one by one until things settled down. Luckily things seem to have settled down after moving the first one! Hey that's kind of lucky. (Praise Murphy, I'm not worthy, I am not a lawyer, My mother loves me, etc etc.) This kind of crappy behavior by a server reminds me how nice it is when everything behaves well.  

Press Release for GarageBand Podcast Studio. 

WSJ: "It's far too early to write Apple's digital-music epitaph." 

Rex Hammock joins the Dixie choir, making it a quintet. It's included as an enclosure in my RSS feed.  

New York Metro: "Lessig has cast aside his caution about a secret that haunts him still. And while his passion about his client’s cause is real and visceral, Hardwicke isn’t the only plaintiff here. Lessig is also litigating on behalf of the child he once was." 

Just curious, were there any bloggers at last week's Google Factory Tour, or did they just invite professionals? 

Tim Bray: "I guess they don’t need that kind of listening post."