What makes the Kindle awesome, isn’t Amazon.
It’s funny I was reading Joe Wikert’s post on the death of the Kindle, when Amazon released it’s long, long, long awaited firmware update 2.3, adding a few, but not enough of the things Joe mentions being conspicuously missing from the Kindle.
Joe has some really good points, and sadly, 2.3 doesn’t negate many if any at all.
Then I got to thinking, what makes me still recommend my Kindle? It’s not the Kindle itself, it’s only a little bit Amazon itself, though I do almost all my buying on amazon, and really like the whispernet service.
it’s the incredible third party ecosystem that has grown around the Kindle to make it a truly kick ass device.
Android splintering? Yes. Problem? Hellz Yes
Someone twittered this, and I wanted to post my complete agreement. I had a similar conversation with my friend Josh on twitter.
His position was that it’s the carriers that are responsible, not Google. I completely disagree. Google should have been in the same position as Apple. However by taking the “we’re Google, everyone can play, [...]
Unemployment heat map makes me sad
This made a few twitter rounds last week, but I finally looked myself. People compared it to flu and virus outbreaks, and I can’t disagree, it’s a pretty disturbing picture.
eBooks unprofitable at 9.99? I call Shenanigans
I came across this on Tele-Read, and had to voice my irritation.
Not only do I think it’s BS that a $9.99 eBook isn’t profitable I think it’s outrageous that Steve Haber sucks for thinking consumers are a bunch of idiots that don’t understand profit margins.
Perhaps $9.99 isn’t profitable for Sony (Why is sony profiting at all on eBook sales?) because Sony is a huge bloated company with (I’d guess) more middle management than it needs. Profit margins have to be high for bloated inefficient companies to survive. That’s not the consumers fault, or the competition.
It’s an ebook, very little work goes into it’s creation, distribution, etc beyond the initial writing/editing process. Unless publishers are so backwards they’re still mailing manuscripts around in big envelopes, the work is already digital. Translate to ePub, and that’s it.
WTF, you can’t make money on $9.99 when you’re doing nothing more than taking the finished digital work, and converting to ePub? Really? eBook sales should be icing. You’re already marketing the book (or should be), already pitching it to brick and mortors, etc. the eBook is the “Oh yeah it’s also available on your eReader”
Follow up to Netflix on my PS3
I wanted to post a quick followup to my previous post about streaming Netflix on my PS3 via a disc they send out.
It’s as shitty as I said.
My free disc arrived and I figured, you know what, I’ll try it out, maybe I’m wrong, it happens from time to time. I wasn’t.
The interface is craptastic. You load the disc like any other, it spends some time connecting, then it brings up a nice little screen with an alpha numeric code, that I have to plug into my Netflix account. Too bad my laptop was upstairs doing something so I had to commit it to memory. Lame. I know it would have been extra work on Netflix’s part, but it would have been an awesome gesture if they could have pre-registered the disc they sent to my account “Welcome John, here’s your instant Queue”
The browsing is about as simple as it could be, a linear horizontal display of movies. You have to just scroll left and right through the list. That’s it.
No bells, no whistles.
One more tool in my Travel toolkit – Network Location
One of the things I hate about travel (And I really do love traveling) is my laptop doing things I don’t want it to do, because it doesn’t know we’re traveling.
Thankfully, what I assumed was just a natural state of affairs, I had no control over, turns out to be a completely manageable process, thanks to Network Location. I would have never known this app existed, if not for twitter. Someone (I don’t recall who) pointed out the One Finger Discount site, and after looking over the offerings, I was clicking purchase.
It was especially good timing. I was leaving for a trip to San Jose, so I’d get to test the app out. Set up is really straight forward. You define your locations (Home, Office, Travel, Starbucks, etc)
The things that get me, are printers, Time Machine, etc. When I’m traveling for work, I almost always have my portable HP printer, so I’d like to not have to remember to change printers.
johnwilker.com – My Thoughts on V
Be warned if you haven’t watched it yet, stop reading.
I loved V as a kid, it was a great show, good message. Sure it was campy and Jane Badler was a psycho bitch of a bad guy, but it was a great show and set of Miniseries/TV Movies.
I watched the new V the other night and while I think it’s got promise, and I admit, it’s a “re-imagining” it’s got some work to do to measure up to the original.
Sure networks today, are run by retards, who give a show 1 episode to hit #1 and if it doesn’t they cancel so they can air more Dancing|singing|boxing|dieting with the stars, so I hope V get’s a chance to work out the kinks.
The Nokia Invasion will NOT be Televised
Apparently Nokia thinks they need to invade the US to get people interested in their phones…
I hate to break it to them, they’ve been here a long time, no invasion needed, better phones and OS’s yes, invasion plans, no.
twitter lists and why I’m not playing
The nonconformist in me hates lists for the simple reason that everyone else is ga ga over them. ditto for google wave.
But for lists there’s a bigger reason, and Chris Brogan hits the nail on the head, They’re exclusionary. They’re the new “hottest kid in school” list posted in the locker bay. Those on it feel more self important, and those not on it, feel like less than people, and in the end, they’re completely meaningless and 100% arbitrary.
There’s few things I hate more than internet popularity contests.
Boxee it’s quite nice!
in the meantime, it’s been nice to catch up on shows on Hulu (when it doesn’t freeze mid show), and stream some Netflix movies. I looked at Plex, but the Boxee interface was more friendly. To that end, Nicole has already used Boxee, liked it, and managed to navigate to watch things, without me in the room, that’s a huge win for Boxee.
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