Slashdot Mirror
"Series of Tubes" Metaphor Implemented
meisteg writes to tell us about Tubes: a beta application that uses a tube metaphor to enable users to share files over the Internet. The Windows-only app is free and the company hopes to make money on an enhanced version targeted at businesses. See this video for some details of how Tubes works. From the article: "[Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens] endured ridicule last year for his assertion that the Internet is 'a series of tubes.' But one Web startup hopes to bring that metaphor to life with a new service that makes it easy for people to share videos, songs, pictures and other big files."
I am the marketer at TubesNow.com and my name is Steve. And no, we didn't name it Tubes because of the Senator from Alaska although we do get a chuckle out of it here in Boston. We named it Tubes because of the metaphor we borrowed: the pneumatic tube used at many bank drive ins to transfer documents & cash. You know that cool thing at the bank the teller uses to send you money with a whoosh? Tubes is the digital version of that - letting you share with many people at once. Just like that bank tube, Tubes is secure, bi-directional, personal (you see and wave at the teller behind glass while she counts out your money), private, nearly instantaneous and fun. I remember getting lollipops in the tube when my Dad would drive to the bank (way before ATMs) and I practically begged him to use the bank tube because I was trying to figure out how it worked. We could have called it Star Trek (but we didn't, that would really be bad marketing) since some people think of it as part Replicator and part Transporter. We think it is cool and I hope you try it. It is beta software and we're hoping the slashdot crowd helps us make it better.
And to the other person worried about getting his computer filled with stuff that other people send you, be aware that we implemented a feature called "On Demand" that lets you see what people are sending you before you accept. Or you can accept it all, delete your local copy, and request a local copy any time you want, on any computer.
Hope that helps. If you have any other questions, feel free to post them on our forum!
Here is why he gets mocked:
...
"There's one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.
"But this service is now going to go through the internet* and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.
"Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet?
"I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?
"Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially.
"They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.
" It's a series of tubes.
"And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.
"Now we have a separate Department of Defense internet now, did you know that?
"Do you know why?
"Because they have to have theirs delivered immediately. They can't afford getting delayed by other people."
This quote (more fully found here; there is also a link to the audio recording on that page) doesn't actually get at what the Senator was talking about--how corporations clog the "tubes," causing them to be unavailable to the average consumer for sending "internets," and therefore telephone companies should be allowed to charge fees to content providers to discourage clogging the "tubes."
Here is a tracking of the Senator's delayed "internet."
Also see, of course, the relevant Wikipedia entry.
[and this is why we should probably hand decisionmaking authority with regard to this type of regulation to an expert body, rather than leaving it to congresspeople who don't even know the proper use of the word "email."]
Sooo ... you would prefer that they not tell Fedex your address when shipping something to you?
Seriously, that's the most standard privacy clause you can find.
Coined by Bush - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internets_(colloquial ism)
BUSH: ...We can have filters on Internets where public money is spent. There ought to be filters in public libraries and filters in public schools so if kids get on the Internet, there is not going to be pornography or violence coming in.
and
BUSH: Yes, that's a great question. Thanks. I hear there's rumors on the, uh, Internets, that we're going to have a draft. We're not going to have a draft, period. The all-volunteer army works. It works particularly when we pay our troops well. It works when we make sure they've got housing, like we have done in the last military budgets.