Unfortunately, the only "asset" Facebook has to monetize is the wealth of personal information that has been poured into the system by every one of those 400 million users. Facebook has understood this from day one, its user community has not.
As near as I was ever able to determine, the cable companies have always been all about marketing, the art of inducing people to give you money for something.
But they forgot the other part of marketing is customer service. Advertisements (Look at all the wonderful channels!) can get customers into your garden, but only good customer service can keep them there.
Supreme excellence in the art of marketing is making people glad to give you money for something.
As for me, I gave up cable over ten years ago when Comcast insisted that I had to buy a five channel bundle to get the one channel in that bundle I wanted to watch. Funny thing: with the internet, I've never missed them.
Any police uniform shop will have them. They have a loop through which you run your belt, and a clip which holds one or two keyrings, and a leather flap to protect your pants. I've used one for twenty years.
I haven't had cable TV in something like fifteen years. The day Comcast insisted I had to pay for a "package" of five channels, four of which were garbage, in order to watch the one channel I wanted, which was the Sci-Fi Channel. My only question is: What took the rest of the public so long?
Their higher prices and more limited availability will prevent you from spending so much on eBooks (or any other kind, for that matter.)
I was a sinner once, buying an entire series at once if one book looked interesting. Spending as much as $50/week on eBooks and thinking nothing of it, as I rejoiced in the comfort of knowing I'd never run out of things to read.
Now, after HarperCollins, Penguin, and other major publishers have pulled out of Fictionwise, I've spent maybe $20 on eBooks (other than Baen) in the past month. My budget can go to elsewhere, and my addiction is under control.
[ecstatic scream] Thank you, oh publishers. Thank you for shrinking my urge to buy your books to something I can manage! [/ecstatic scream]
Thank you. My pact brother handles movies for the family, so I've sent him the link as "netflix fodder." We've gotten some absolutely splendid foreign films that way, to the point where we rarely even rent Hollywood's crap anymore.
1. Redbox and a much more efficient rental market, which is why the studios have bludgeoned them into a 28-day "waiting period" to try and force people to buy DVDs
2. What's worth actually buying? With the exception of Pixar's stuff, I haven't seen a movie I'd be willing to shell out for in about five years.
About halfway through "Up" in 3-D, I got the classic "funky stuff in the visual field" symptom of an incipient migraine, which was followed (fortunately after the movie ended) with a classic migraine.
Between that and the extra charge for the glasses they try to get you to return, I figure I've seen my last 3-D movie.
Cory Doctorow's novel, "Little Brother" predicted exactly this happening in schools, where the school-issued laptops were used to monitor student behavior, websurfing, etc. etc.
I didn't think it would actually happen this soon, however.
We are very likely to see people like the major auto manufacturers providing this sort of thing ONLY to their authorized dealers, and possibly trying to claim that any repair information of any kind is copyrighted, just like they've done with the diagnostic codes on the black boxes.
Or does anybody really believe that NONE of that money gets given as "campaign contributions", salaries for "lobbyists", ACTA negotiators, dinner with politicians, or other persuasive measures?
In some respect, an economy can be considered as a sort of ecology. If this research holds up, it would be interesting to do the same sort of analysis to rank the importance of industries and occupations. Which ones are necessary and vital and which ones (MPAA?) can be discarded without harm or even with benefit to the rest of the ecology.
Basically, the landing itself was the doom of the Apollo program, and most of the subsequent space effort. Because they "finished the job," a huge chunk of a Federal bureaucracy (and NASA is a bureaucracy), found themselves "downsized" and punished for succeeding.
The lesson was not lost on other major endeavors. (Fusion is still "forty years away", and it was "forty years away" in 1969.) I have absolutely no doubt that other R&D-oriented programs have also been handicapped or effectively destroyed by the Lesson of Apollo.
For details of an earlier example, check out Penelope's tapestry in Homer's "The Iliad."
"The police should have the power to search anyone's hard drive over the network without a warrant and erase anything they deem suspicious. Anybody who objects to this is a thief or thief wannabe."
Sounds like Canada's on its way to granting his wish.
Slashdot Mirror
When you're talking about evidence where the death penalty is at issue, the ONLY acceptable collision rate is zero.
As the following blog post http://steve.grc.com/2010/05/24/facebook-and-the-ford-pinto/ points out:
Ditto for Twitter.
Lieutenant: Sergeant! Take that machine-gun nest!
Sergeant: Sod off! You didn't say "please."
As near as I was ever able to determine, the cable companies have always been all about marketing, the art of inducing people to give you money for something.
But they forgot the other part of marketing is customer service. Advertisements (Look at all the wonderful channels!) can get customers into your garden, but only good customer service can keep them there.
Supreme excellence in the art of marketing is making people glad to give you money for something.
As for me, I gave up cable over ten years ago when Comcast insisted that I had to buy a five channel bundle to get the one channel in that bundle I wanted to watch. Funny thing: with the internet, I've never missed them.
Any police uniform shop will have them. They have a loop through which you run your belt, and a clip
which holds one or two keyrings, and a leather flap to protect your pants. I've used one for twenty years.
I haven't had cable TV in something like fifteen years. The day Comcast insisted I had to pay for a "package" of five channels, four of which were garbage, in order to watch the one channel I wanted, which was the Sci-Fi Channel. My only question is: What took the rest of the public so long?
Their higher prices and more limited availability will prevent you from spending so much on eBooks (or any other kind, for that matter.)
I was a sinner once, buying an entire series at once if one book looked interesting. Spending as much as $50/week on eBooks and thinking nothing of it, as I rejoiced in the comfort of knowing I'd never run out of things to read.
Now, after HarperCollins, Penguin, and other major publishers have pulled out of Fictionwise, I've spent maybe $20 on eBooks (other than Baen) in the past month. My budget can go to elsewhere, and my addiction is under control.
[ecstatic scream] Thank you, oh publishers. Thank you for shrinking my urge to buy your books to something I can manage! [/ecstatic scream]
Dark Knight may or may not have been a good film. I can't say. I haven't seen it.
But I reject the claim that most movies are worth the expense of:
a: buying them
b: organizing them in a collection
c: protecting that collection
Thank you. My pact brother handles movies for the family, so I've sent him the link as "netflix fodder." We've gotten some absolutely splendid foreign films that way, to the point where we rarely even rent Hollywood's crap anymore.
Two factors:
1. Redbox and a much more efficient rental market, which is why the studios have bludgeoned them into a 28-day "waiting period" to try and force people to buy DVDs
2. What's worth actually buying? With the exception of Pixar's stuff, I haven't seen a movie I'd be willing to shell out for in about five years.
About halfway through "Up" in 3-D, I got the classic "funky stuff in the visual field" symptom of an incipient migraine, which was followed (fortunately after the movie ended) with a classic migraine.
Between that and the extra charge for the glasses they try to get you to return, I figure I've seen my last 3-D movie.
Cory Doctorow's novel, "Little Brother" predicted exactly this happening in schools, where the school-issued laptops were used to monitor student behavior, websurfing, etc. etc.
I didn't think it would actually happen this soon, however.
Obligatory reply.
We are very likely to see people like the major auto manufacturers providing this sort of
thing ONLY to their authorized dealers, and possibly trying to claim that any repair information
of any kind is copyrighted, just like they've done with the diagnostic codes on the black boxes.
This will give a whole new meaning to "Not tonight. I've got a headache."
Just pay. We don't give a damn if you watch it.
Or does anybody really believe that NONE of that money gets given as "campaign contributions", salaries for "lobbyists", ACTA negotiators, dinner with politicians, or other persuasive measures?
Which, I suppose, is like a "somewhat" honest politician.
GATTACA! GATTACA! GATTACA!
First Rule of Marketing: Give the customer a reason to buy what you're offering.
Which implies:
1. Don't try to sell a product with fewer conveniences at a higher price.
2. Don't bitch-slap the customer with proprietary and expensive and expect him to love your product.
3. Don't remind him that you think YOU own HIS stuff, such as your game or eBook collection. (AMZN forgot this one, too!)
All of the above is why I haven't bought a Sony anything since the rootkit(tm) scandal.
After all, it does seem reasonable that Microsoft would want to outdo an open source vomit-producing project.
In some respect, an economy can be considered as a sort of ecology. If this research holds up, it would be interesting to do the same sort of analysis to rank the importance of industries and occupations. Which ones are necessary and vital and which ones (MPAA?) can be discarded without harm or even with benefit to the rest of the ecology.
Basically, the landing itself was the doom of the Apollo program, and most of the subsequent space effort. Because they "finished the job," a huge chunk of a Federal bureaucracy (and NASA is a bureaucracy), found themselves "downsized" and punished for succeeding.
The lesson was not lost on other major endeavors. (Fusion is still "forty years away", and it was "forty years away" in 1969.) I have absolutely no doubt that other R&D-oriented programs have also been handicapped or effectively destroyed by the Lesson of Apollo.
For details of an earlier example, check out Penelope's tapestry in Homer's "The Iliad."
Otherwise known as the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Human genetic evolution is Darwinian, but cultural (memetic) evolution is Lamarckan.
From an email of several years ago.
"The police should have the power to search anyone's hard drive over the network without a warrant and erase anything they deem suspicious. Anybody who objects to this is a thief or thief wannabe."
Sounds like Canada's on its way to granting his wish.