in my opinion, just because things like adblockers will come out doesn't mean the majority of people will use them. think of spam: why does it still exist? it's because of that 0.1% of people that view them. say 2 million people receive a piece of spam (a very low number by today's standards I'll bet) and only 0.1% view and respond to it by purchasing the service or product. that's 2000 people who bought your product. if you spent even $1000 on your spam services then you've still earned $1000. For a small business that's nice piece of cash for very little work. so they continue to send spam.
Anyway, my point is that the same thing works with something like ads on a cell phone. Sure, through viral discussion a large number of people will block their ads, but that large number will probably be quite small compared to the total number of people who opt for a FREE(!) cell phone. so google will continue to use ads to cover costs and make money - as long as the percentage of people watching and responding to ads stays high enough... but that's another story:)
I think it's important to note that Google isn't just great at searching. They aren't simply riding the wave of a technology they invented 10 years ago. There are so many aspects to Google as a company that help it succeed.
I am very interested in Google, so I try to keep abreast of developments. I've seen the company attract and hire the top minds in Silicon Valley (and around the world for that matter) in every field, which includes top management, finances, accounting, law, programming (especially programming) - you name it. They implement best practices in all of these areas and follow strict rules while maintaining open discussion and flexibility to change.
Most of us on/. are aware of Google's agile and test-first programming and while there are of course downfalls, these are highly effective methods to producing high-quality software relatively quickly. This, indidentally, is very good for marketing as programs continue to improve and new and exciting products are constantly released to keep users interested.
Finally, and I personally believe this to be the most important aspect of Google's success, is that they consistently appear to be an open and honest corporate body. They follow the law as best they can while still trying to keep their users (and shareholders) informed of how they are handling various issues. I think it's no surprise that thousands of shareholders trust Google enough to buy stock even though Google has told them that they will have very little influence over the companies' movements.
I try to be objective in my life, and I feel that I am being such with my analysis of Google. There will always be flaws, but Google is a very strong company, both inside and out.
It's also interesting that the capabilities include "reading to children" (as if video games aren't sufficient caretakers)
i agree, that's interesting. causes one to think about whether a humanoid robot reading to children is better psychologically than no babysitter at all. if a robot babysitter is indeed better than tv or video games then how important is human parenting or parent-child relationships?
Not only do I agree that this is a 'war on personal freedom,' i also feel that this project has disaster written all over it. This 'AI' will have to be pretty intelligent to tag and organize all of this content in a meaningful way, and on top of that, those analysing the data will need to be pretty friggin' brilliant to use it correctly.
as you say, "People say lots of things, people think lots of things." I personally feel that there is no one who can honestly or accurately see all comments and verbalized streams of thought for what they are worth - usually just contemplation or teen angst.
while it is certainly *possible* that terrorists might use (or have used) globally accessible modes of communication to plan a major attack, monitoring the news wires and blogs is probably not the most effective way to prevent the attack.
we must continue to demand privacy at all times, however i feel that the push by the top levels of government to gain access to our souls could be our downfall as a society as we distance ourselves from each other in fear of relinquishing too much information.
I agree with your comment - I don't see a huge number of people buying just data files and then doing the work themselves to convert them into the medium they want.
However, I think it's the title of this news piece that's misleading: "The Death of the Music CD." The new 'non-format' is not so much a replacement for traditional formats as another way to distribute the product.
I suspect it will be less end-consumers purchaing data files and more distributers who will take the raw data and format it for whatever sells best.
Actually, from what I've read merchants etc. were flipping out because they were (at least initially) told that they were to throw out all the old info and start from scratch... I doubt this went through, though.
Wouldn't these maintain a certain amount of curvature after been curled into a tube for any amount of time? Just think of a poster that is rolled up for you to take home from the store. It takes quite a bit of trouble to flatten that thing out again. having a screen that does not unfurl completely would be pretty annoying.
Well, it would be way too expensive to fix it back here - that's why they go out into space to do so. HOWEVER. Bringing it back is a fantastic idea, IMO, because it should be in a museum for future generations to admire. It's a piece of history, and letting it burn up is almost a shame.
It's a good point you make, but I believe it could be expanded. I feel that any country, in order to serve its people to the best of its ability, should look to the rest of the world for examples. There are great things happening all over the planet that we can learn from and some of these are not even democracies.
Just look at Japan (democracy). For many years their motto was to "imitate and improve." Just look at their superior consumer products and high standard of living. Yes, the dictators of the the late 1800s and early 1900s nearly destroyed a culture, but they soon learned ways of balancing these two aspects.
Quinn (from the article) made a good point - maybe all countries should have some say in who becomes president of the US. We all have a vested interest. That way, if countries have a say in how others are run, perhaps the best elements of all countries will be integrated.
Holy crap, I've left out so much and I hope the ensuing discussion covers some of it!
Loads of the greatest classical works ever written were only written so the composer could make some scratch. However a lot of these composers would be working on something amazing on their own time and composed for roalty and richies to put food on the table and get their music heard.
Today the same thing still happens, however I think the artists you're talking about are the ones who are created by the record companies and who are not actually contributing greatly to their art. They just spend money in their spare time and make others look bad.
Paying for good music is a great idea as it keeps great music coming. It's paying for shit that is stupid and detrimental.
i know you are being semi-sarcastic here, but I do feel I have to make a point. Most people are complaining that this "reviewer's" complaints are half-assed at best.
The points he makes that bother me the most are:
"I haven't figured out how to put app icons on the Windows bottom panel. I don't even know if it can be done." and
"I'm used to clicking on my little KDE clock and having a calendar pop up for me. I can't seem to do this in Windows, even though I've tried."
What?? These things are mindlessly simple! He couldn't have tried! My MOM can do these things, and that is really saying something about their simplicity.
I think most people are bothered by statements such as these, and are interested in fair, logical arguments and discussions. In fact, this reviewer almost does a disservice to Linux by prompting such debate.
It's not "The Man" that most people are worried about - it's marketers who will use this information to design commercials that are specific to a sub-group. This can be good for selling products, but a lot of people are worried about losing some sense of anonymity
In fact, most library tags have very early generation RFID tags in them. basically there's only one switch inside them (one = not checked, zero = checked out).
You mentioned that there really isn't much of a range on RFID tags, and this is very true. the infrastructure that would be needed to effectively "track" someone using a library book tag would be MASSIVE. first of all, long range readers are hugely expensive, and often require active tags which can cost $5 to who knows what each (an probably only last a couple of years max). Second, these readers would have to be put EVERYWHERE in order to track you.
For now, people shouldn't worry about privacy invasion on a high level (yes - it's easy to track what books you take out, but that's been going on for years) for two reasons:
1) To tag an entire library would cost a fortune, as small tags still cost at minimum 20 cents each when bought in huge volume. Only the largest companies are investing in these things for their products (we all remember the announcement about Gilette).
2) It's rediculously easy to prevent an RFID tag from being read - just put it up against some metal. the clearance has to be something like 35 mm to be read.
As someone with marketing background, it is my opinion that it should be opt-OUT, but for the "clueless" as we like to call them, it should be an option for "increased security." Clueless people know enough to make a decision that is described as "increasing security from viruses and hackers without changing your Internet experience."
As someone who knows at least what a port is and who has opened one on occasion, I agree that one should not have to "opt-in" to something so... well, fundamental to the web. All you have to do is explain the opt-out in a way that your customers understand.
I just performed in that telecast with my Choir. I'm from Newfoundland, and the show *did* go on, and it was quite nice. They actually re-enacted the connection at the exact minute that Marconi did 100 years ago. Very cool.
Come on, folks, is there really a loss of interest in broadband access?? I couldn't live without my DSL connection, and on the *two* occasions in which it was down, I went bonkers! (The latter occurance, I'll add, was remedied by my ISP in less than half an hour)
I can't even stand being on a slow server, or at peak times at my university. Speed is important, especially for research, because time is an asset.
Sure, some people don't see the benefit of broadband, but did they really see it in the beginning? To them it was merely a novelty, OR their lifestyle has changed since, and they don't need it anymore.
This is not the case for the public as a whole, and as prices lower, demand will rise even further, and we'll never understand why there was ever any doubt. In fact, I don't understand NOW why there's any doubt that broadband is "where it's at".
Slashdot Mirror
in my opinion, just because things like adblockers will come out doesn't mean the majority of people will use them. think of spam: why does it still exist? it's because of that 0.1% of people that view them. say 2 million people receive a piece of spam (a very low number by today's standards I'll bet) and only 0.1% view and respond to it by purchasing the service or product. that's 2000 people who bought your product. if you spent even $1000 on your spam services then you've still earned $1000. For a small business that's nice piece of cash for very little work. so they continue to send spam.
Anyway, my point is that the same thing works with something like ads on a cell phone. Sure, through viral discussion a large number of people will block their ads, but that large number will probably be quite small compared to the total number of people who opt for a FREE(!) cell phone. so google will continue to use ads to cover costs and make money - as long as the percentage of people watching and responding to ads stays high enough... but that's another story :)
I think it's important to note that Google isn't just great at searching. They aren't simply riding the wave of a technology they invented 10 years ago. There are so many aspects to Google as a company that help it succeed.
I am very interested in Google, so I try to keep abreast of developments. I've seen the company attract and hire the top minds in Silicon Valley (and around the world for that matter) in every field, which includes top management, finances, accounting, law, programming (especially programming) - you name it. They implement best practices in all of these areas and follow strict rules while maintaining open discussion and flexibility to change.
Most of us on /. are aware of Google's agile and test-first programming and while there are of course downfalls, these are highly effective methods to producing high-quality software relatively quickly. This, indidentally, is very good for marketing as programs continue to improve and new and exciting products are constantly released to keep users interested.
Finally, and I personally believe this to be the most important aspect of Google's success, is that they consistently appear to be an open and honest corporate body. They follow the law as best they can while still trying to keep their users (and shareholders) informed of how they are handling various issues. I think it's no surprise that thousands of shareholders trust Google enough to buy stock even though Google has told them that they will have very little influence over the companies' movements.
I try to be objective in my life, and I feel that I am being such with my analysis of Google. There will always be flaws, but Google is a very strong company, both inside and out.i agree, that's interesting. causes one to think about whether a humanoid robot reading to children is better psychologically than no babysitter at all. if a robot babysitter is indeed better than tv or video games then how important is human parenting or parent-child relationships?
Not only do I agree that this is a 'war on personal freedom,' i also feel that this project has disaster written all over it. This 'AI' will have to be pretty intelligent to tag and organize all of this content in a meaningful way, and on top of that, those analysing the data will need to be pretty friggin' brilliant to use it correctly.
as you say, "People say lots of things, people think lots of things." I personally feel that there is no one who can honestly or accurately see all comments and verbalized streams of thought for what they are worth - usually just contemplation or teen angst.
while it is certainly *possible* that terrorists might use (or have used) globally accessible modes of communication to plan a major attack, monitoring the news wires and blogs is probably not the most effective way to prevent the attack.
we must continue to demand privacy at all times, however i feel that the push by the top levels of government to gain access to our souls could be our downfall as a society as we distance ourselves from each other in fear of relinquishing too much information.
I agree with your comment - I don't see a huge number of people buying just data files and then doing the work themselves to convert them into the medium they want.
However, I think it's the title of this news piece that's misleading: "The Death of the Music CD." The new 'non-format' is not so much a replacement for traditional formats as another way to distribute the product.
I suspect it will be less end-consumers purchaing data files and more distributers who will take the raw data and format it for whatever sells best.
...pardon the pun
Actually, from what I've read merchants etc. were flipping out because they were (at least initially) told that they were to throw out all the old info and start from scratch... I doubt this went through, though.
Wouldn't these maintain a certain amount of curvature after been curled into a tube for any amount of time? Just think of a poster that is rolled up for you to take home from the store. It takes quite a bit of trouble to flatten that thing out again. having a screen that does not unfurl completely would be pretty annoying.
Well, it would be way too expensive to fix it back here - that's why they go out into space to do so. HOWEVER. Bringing it back is a fantastic idea, IMO, because it should be in a museum for future generations to admire. It's a piece of history, and letting it burn up is almost a shame.
I hope this is the beginning of the end of saying "is this the beginning of the end?"
Do you call ownership to the name Anonymous Coward (TM) as well? Otherwise I'm TOTALLY stealing your idea heehee!
It's a good point you make, but I believe it could be expanded. I feel that any country, in order to serve its people to the best of its ability, should look to the rest of the world for examples. There are great things happening all over the planet that we can learn from and some of these are not even democracies.
Just look at Japan (democracy). For many years their motto was to "imitate and improve." Just look at their superior consumer products and high standard of living. Yes, the dictators of the the late 1800s and early 1900s nearly destroyed a culture, but they soon learned ways of balancing these two aspects.
Quinn (from the article) made a good point - maybe all countries should have some say in who becomes president of the US. We all have a vested interest. That way, if countries have a say in how others are run, perhaps the best elements of all countries will be integrated.
Holy crap, I've left out so much and I hope the ensuing discussion covers some of it!
I find that being modded up is just like a hug in itself. It makes me feel all warm inside.
I think paying the wrong artists hurts music.
Loads of the greatest classical works ever written were only written so the composer could make some scratch. However a lot of these composers would be working on something amazing on their own time and composed for roalty and richies to put food on the table and get their music heard.
Today the same thing still happens, however I think the artists you're talking about are the ones who are created by the record companies and who are not actually contributing greatly to their art. They just spend money in their spare time and make others look bad.
Paying for good music is a great idea as it keeps great music coming. It's paying for shit that is stupid and detrimental.
Neo, you can take the red microchip or the blue microchip...
Just doesn't have the same ring to it.
care to elaborate?
i know you are being semi-sarcastic here, but I do feel I have to make a point. Most people are complaining that this "reviewer's" complaints are half-assed at best.
The points he makes that bother me the most are:
"I haven't figured out how to put app icons on the Windows bottom panel. I don't even know if it can be done." and "I'm used to clicking on my little KDE clock and having a calendar pop up for me. I can't seem to do this in Windows, even though I've tried."
What?? These things are mindlessly simple! He couldn't have tried! My MOM can do these things, and that is really saying something about their simplicity.
I think most people are bothered by statements such as these, and are interested in fair, logical arguments and discussions. In fact, this reviewer almost does a disservice to Linux by prompting such debate.
It's not "The Man" that most people are worried about - it's marketers who will use this information to design commercials that are specific to a sub-group. This can be good for selling products, but a lot of people are worried about losing some sense of anonymity
In fact, most library tags have very early generation RFID tags in them. basically there's only one switch inside them (one = not checked, zero = checked out).
You mentioned that there really isn't much of a range on RFID tags, and this is very true. the infrastructure that would be needed to effectively "track" someone using a library book tag would be MASSIVE. first of all, long range readers are hugely expensive, and often require active tags which can cost $5 to who knows what each (an probably only last a couple of years max). Second, these readers would have to be put EVERYWHERE in order to track you.
For now, people shouldn't worry about privacy invasion on a high level (yes - it's easy to track what books you take out, but that's been going on for years) for two reasons:
1) To tag an entire library would cost a fortune, as small tags still cost at minimum 20 cents each when bought in huge volume. Only the largest companies are investing in these things for their products (we all remember the announcement about Gilette).
2) It's rediculously easy to prevent an RFID tag from being read - just put it up against some metal. the clearance has to be something like 35 mm to be read.
I hate how the images never link to bigger versions that you can actually make out. So I found this for everyone to look at. I got it here.
As someone with marketing background, it is my opinion that it should be opt-OUT, but for the "clueless" as we like to call them, it should be an option for "increased security." Clueless people know enough to make a decision that is described as "increasing security from viruses and hackers without changing your Internet experience."
As someone who knows at least what a port is and who has opened one on occasion, I agree that one should not have to "opt-in" to something so... well, fundamental to the web. All you have to do is explain the opt-out in a way that your customers understand.
this was a fantastic article! :)
I hope that guy becomes famous!!
I just performed in that telecast with my Choir. I'm from Newfoundland, and the show *did* go on, and it was quite nice. They actually re-enacted the connection at the exact minute that Marconi did 100 years ago. Very cool.
Come on, folks, is there really a loss of interest in broadband access?? I couldn't live without my DSL connection, and on the *two* occasions in which it was down, I went bonkers! (The latter occurance, I'll add, was remedied by my ISP in less than half an hour)
I can't even stand being on a slow server, or at peak times at my university. Speed is important, especially for research, because time is an asset.
Sure, some people don't see the benefit of broadband, but did they really see it in the beginning? To them it was merely a novelty, OR their lifestyle has changed since, and they don't need it anymore.
This is not the case for the public as a whole, and as prices lower, demand will rise even further, and we'll never understand why there was ever any doubt. In fact, I don't understand NOW why there's any doubt that broadband is "where it's at".
No way. Broadband is here to stay.